Alliance with BJP: Deve Gowda says party leaders on same page

Mangaluru, NT Bureau: JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda on Monday insisted that all party leaders were taken into confidence before allying with the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections.

This was a rebuttal to the claim of the party state president CM Ibrahim who alleged that he wasn’t consulted before the pre-poll alliance was formalized.

“Before going through any of this, we had discussed the matter with our 19 MLAs, eight MLCs, party leaders and state president Ibrahim. Only after all of this, Kumaraswamy flew out and met the Home Minister (Amit Shah). The rest of us didn’t approach anyone at that point,” Deve Gowda said in Mangaluru.

He made the comments after a public appearance at Kukke Subramanya temple. The former PM also pointed out that their decision to ally with the BJP was also based on Congress’ “enthusiasm” over winning all 28 Lok Sabha constituencies.

“Today, there is a Congress government. There is enthusiasm among them that they’ll win all 28 seats. As a result, BJP and JD(S) decided to come together,” he added.

The JD(S) bigwig, refused to speculate on seat sharing and the fate of the Mandya segment, pointing out that Mandya MP Sumlatha Ambareesh was backed by the saffron party in the 2019 general elections.