BENGALURU: The Congress-JD(S) coordination committee meeting chaired by Siddaramaiah to discuss the Lok Sabha seat-sharing ended in a stalemate, with neither side agreeing to the other’s position. Now, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda are likely to take the call on seat-sharing by March 10.
The meeting at Kumara Krupa guest house in Bengaluru was attended by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, JD(S) National General Secretary Danish Ali, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and AICC General-Secretary K C Venugopal. It ended with neither side saying yes to the other side or the contentious issues discussed.
According to sources, JD(S) would like to keep Hassan and Mandya where it has sitting parliamentarians, but it also insisted that the seats with Congress parliamentarians be brought to the negotiation table. JD(S) is insisting that Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Tumakuru and Raichur with sitting Congress parliamentarians be discussed.
Both sides are now waiting for the next round of discussions, which according to Siddaramaiah, will be held between Congress and JD(S) national presidents - Rahul Gandhi and H D Deve Gowda.Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah said, “The talks are going in the right direction and if we unitedly fight, we can win 20 plus seats.’’ Both K C Venugopal and Siddaramaiah confirmed and said that JD(S) has asked for 12 of the 28 seats.