BENGALURU: Plagued by groupism and sandwiched between two national parties, the Janata Dal (Secular) is trying to make its presence felt in a bigger way in the Legislative Council post the December 27 elections.
The party is keen to bag at least five to eight seats out of the 18 constituencies from where it has fielded its candidates.
It is evident that all is not well in the family-centric JD(S), headed by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.
The party that once considered Mandya, Tumakuru, Kolar, Ramanagaram and Bengaluru Rural districts as its pocket boroughs, is in disarray.
The JD(S) also received a jolt when its sitting member Hulinaiker from Tumakuru district local bodies constituency rebelled against the party after being denied a ticket and is now contesting from BJP.
“As it is, the party had a thin chance of retaining its seat in Tumakuru district. Now, with the rebellion of Hulinaikar, all its chances seem to have been washed away. Congress candidate Rajendra is likely to be the beneficiary of the infighting in JD(S),” a senior party leader told Express.
The JD(S)’s prospect in Mandya district, which was considered to be a citadel of the Vokkaliga-dominated party, also seems bleak. It had to face the ire of sitting JD(S) member Ramakrishna and his supporters, following denial of ticket to him.
Party nominee Appajigowda, faced with discontent over distribution of party tickets, appears to be spending most of his time in bringing the two opposing groups together for his own good rather than campaigning for the polls.
JD(S) candidates had won both the Mandya and Tumakuru seats in the 2010 Council polls. But with the entire rank and file in the ruling Congress working together for the success of its nominee K L Shivaramegowda, it is going to be tough for JD(S) to retain its seat this time.
The party also has high hopes of retaining one of the two seats in the double-member Mysuru local bodies constituencies, where it has fielded sitting member Sandesh Nagaraj, while its Kolar candidate Manohar is sending shivers down the Congress spine by taking the fight to the opposition camp.
“The infighting in the Congress’s Kolar-Chikkaballapur district unit, which has been divided between two Lok Sabha members -- K H Muniyappa and Veerappa Moily -- is likely to help the JD(S) candidate,” a party leader said.
In the Hassan local bodies constituency, the home district of Deve Gowda, there were murmurs within the ranks as one section was strongly in favour of fielding Gowda’s second daughter-in-law Bhavani, wife of H D Revanna.
But the bickering did not last long as Gowda was very firm against fielding another family member and settled for sitting member Patel Shivaram.
JD(S) sitting member in Bengaluru Rural district, Krishnappa, a film producer, has locked horns with Ravi, a close relative of Energy Minister D K Shivakumar, where the latter has reportedly made deep inroads into the JD(S) camp.
Though JD(S) had fielded 19 candidates for the 25 Council seats, it suffered an early setback when one of its candidate in Ballari withdrew his candidature in favour of Congress candidate K C Kondaiah, keeping the party leaders in the dark.
The JD(S) patriarch has taken up the entire responsibility for the success of the party. He is working out strategies, not only to ensure the victory of the party candidates, but also to see that the party remains a political force to reckon with in the state.