JD(S) to face 2018 Assembly polls alone

The JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Tuesday said his party will go it alone in the 2018 Assembly polls and not tie up with the Congress.

Addressing journalists here, Gowda said the JD(S) has suffered a lot by aligning with the two national parties at different times. “We will not repeat the mistake now. While the Congress is striving to regain its lost ground, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to begin his Navabharat scheme from Karnataka, by announcing new programmes.

As the ‘battle of money’ between the two parties is getting bigger by the day, the JD(S) will go to the people with just the developmental works executed during our tenure. As people have seen the 20 months of able administration of H D Kumaraswamy as chief minister, they will support us. People now understand the need for a regional party in Karnataka.”

Dismissing reports that the JD(S) would form a grand alliance on the lines of the one that was constituted in Bihar to defeat the BJP, Gowda said the JD(S) would maintain a safe distance from both the Congress and the BJP.

Refuting the allegation of state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa that the JD(S) had entered into a secret pact with the Congress and did not field its candidates in the Assembly bypolls from Nanjangud and Gundlupet, he said, “I need not learn the ropes of politics from Yeddyurappa. We did not find it right to spend money for a term of just 10 months. Both the national parties have spent crores through backdoors. We are not in a position to compete with them.”

Gowda was tight-lipped on the possible induction of former MP A H Vishwanath (Congress) into the JD(S).