BENGALURU: With former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy dropping hints of JDS’ potential alliance with the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, political circles are abuzz about him visiting the national capital soon and deliberating with the BJP top brass in this regard.
“There is a feeling among people that the JDS should ally with the BJP... We will discuss within the party and take a decision,” he had told to a private TV channel on Friday, indicating that the option for his party to ally with the BJP is open. After the Assembly polls, he is said to have met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. Now, with the BJP scheduled to hold a meeting of NDA partners in New Delhi on July 18, speculation is rife about Kumaraswamy also calling on Shah, so that he can pitch his claim for 5-6 LS seats for the JDS in the Old Mysuru region.
In the 2019 LS polls, the JDS went in alliance with the Congress and won only one seat -- Hassan, while the Congress also won just one seat, with the BJP sweeping 25 seats. In Mandya, Sumalatha Ambareesh had won as an independent, defeating the Congress-JDS alliance candidate, Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
This time around, the JDS, which is facing an ‘existential crisis’, is likely to go with the BJP, according to sources.
Even in the Assembly, Kumaraswamy had stated that for the survival of the regional party, he had to weigh in options, and indirectly, said that even the BJP is not averse to the JDS for an alliance. In fact, he had helped the BJP get to power in the state for the first time in 2006, as he had allied with the saffron party. He became chief minister of that alliance government, with BJP’s B S Yediyurappa as his deputy.