The eight leaders who joined the party are as follows:  H C Mahadevappa (T Narasipura), B R Patil (Alanda), M K Somashekar (Krishnaraja), K Venkatesh (Periyapatna), K M Krishnamurthy (Kadur), Mahadeva (Krishnarajanagar), H Y Meti (Guledgud) and Vaijyanath Patil (Chincholi)  joined the Congress, in the presence of Union Minister and AICC General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka Prithviraj Chauhan.

Also, present on the occasion were  nearly all State party leaders at a function organised at the Congress office in Bangalore.

With this, the JD(S) received another jolt in the Mysore region (after G T Deve Gowda who recently joined the BJP), as four of these leaders hail from the same region.

Out of party

These former MLAs had distanced themselves from the JD(S) soon after party supremo H D Deve Gowda axed their leader from the ministry and removed them from the party in June 2005.

In fact, these leaders were scheduled to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi and join the party at the end of 2007. However, their meeting was put off because Sonia was hospitalised for a week during that time.
Later, Mr Prithviraj Chauhan while welcoming them, said joining of these MLAs signifies a major political consolidation in the State ahead of the elections.