Vote share challenge looms over Cong-JD(S) alliance

The JD(S) faces the daunting task of converting the Congress’ votes as theirs in at least five out of eight seats where it will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Karnataka has 28 Lok Sabha seats and the regional party has bagged eight seats, leaving Congress with the remaining 20 as part of their pre-poll alliance.

The Congress camp is worried that the JD(S) has little or no presence in several of the eight seats based on polling data from the 2014 Lok Sabha election. The gap in the vote share polled by the JD(S) and the Congress in some of these eight seats is huge, suggesting that both parties will have to mobilise a massive grassroots effort to make sure the Congress’ votes come to the JD(S) candidates in order to put up a fight against the BJP.

“Votes automatically will not transfer, unless a serious effort is made,” Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister Krishna Byre Gowda of the Congress told DH. “We need to talk to our respective voters, remove their apprehension and take them onboard,” he said. DH lays out how the votes stacked up party-wise in eight seats the JD(S) will contest from.