JD(S) still hopeful of truck with Cong

Party supremo Deve Gowda to hold meeting with MLAs today

The JD (S), which is not very hopeful of performing well in the Legislative Council polls scheduled for December 27, is still hoping to strike a deal with the ruling Congress.

While the Congress has so far not extended any support to the JD(S) to fight the elections for the 25 seats, the party supremo H D Deve Gowda has not give up hopes.

The task of Gowda has become difficult with his son H D Kumaraswamy striking a different chord.

Gowda is now compelled to convene a meeting of the MLAs on Wednesday to discuss the elections.

The JD (S) has 13 representations in the Legislative Council and of these, five MLCs recently retired. The party has not yet taken a final call on whether it should field candidates for all the 25 seats. But it will focus on retaining the five seats it had held and also fight for additional two seats.

Seats
The seats are: Tumakuru, Kolar-Chikkaballapur, Chikkamagalur, Bengaluru Rural, Mandya, Mysuru and Hassan.

Sources in the party said that while Gowda is keen on having a truck with the Congress, his son Kumaraswamy would like to remain ‘flexible’ when it comes to having an alliance or seat-sharing arrangement.

Kumaraswamy is of the view that anti-incumbency factor for the Congress may pose a hurdle and hence the JD (S) should not lend support to it.

However, many JD (S) MLAs are said to have been  keen on being friendly with the Congress as they can get the work done from the government in their Assembly Constituencies.

Executive meeting
The JD (S) is scheduled to hold its national executive meeting in Bengaluru on Thursday which is expected to be attended by as many as 70 leaders from various states. Decisions to appoint returning officers for the organisational elections are expected to be taken in the meeting.