Cong’s GTD outreach leads to JD(S) MLAs' meet

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru / Chikkamagaluru: Recent overtures from Deputy Chief Minister and Karnataka Congress DK Shivakumar to JD(S) MLA from Chamundeshwari GT Deve Gowda have caused the regional outfit’s state president HD Kumaraswamy to call a meeting of his party MLAs in Chikkamagaluru.

Apparently, JD(S) legislators in the lower House, who number 19, were invited to a resort in Chikkamagaluru. However, the excuse being cited for them to be in town is a family programme of JD(S) MLC and senior leader Bhoje Gowda.

It is learned that the programme in question is the engagement ceremony of Gowda’s daughter. However, Gurmitkal MLA Sharanagouda Kandakur has been refraining from party meetings.

In the past few days, GT Deve Gowda claimed before mediapersons that he had a standing offer from Shivakumar to join the Congress. He added that even Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had agreed to it.

However, GT Deve Gowda insisted that he wasn’t interested in joining the Congress. It is to be noted that the JD(S) MLA famously defeated Siddaramaiah in the 2018 Assembly election from Chamundeshwari.

GT Deve Gowda claimed that BJP MLA from Yeshwantpur ST Somashekar and a few other MLAs were with him when he met with Shivakumar. “He said to me that I could have been a minister right now if I had joined the party earlier (before the May Assembly election),” he said.

“But I’m not interested in joining (the Congress),” he added. There has been a lot of talk of Congress executing Operation Hasta (hand), a euphemism for engineering defection of Opposition MLAs.

However, nothing has come of it as all major inductees into the Grand Old Party after May’s Assembly polls have been former MLAs. Moreover, Congress has 135 MLAs in the Assembly.

An independent MLA has joined the party since and another MLA is an ally. As a result, Congress doesn’t require additional MLAs for a stable government.