MYSURU: Anticipating a JDS-BJP pact in the 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress leaders have already started preaching the unity mantra to their party workers to storm back to power with an absolute majority in 2023.
Former chief minister Siddaramaiah said that he had lost the Chamundeshwari election in 2018 to GT Deve Gowda due to BJP’s strategy to field a weak candidate which facilitated the transfer of votes to JDS. Observing that Congress gets defeated due to internal wrangling, he said, “All should bury their differences and work for the party candidate as people want to remove the BJP government.”
He alleged that JDS has no ideology and only wants to enjoy power by joining hands with BJP or Congress, he said, adding that the party is ready to defeat both BJP and JDS, even if there is an understanding.
“The JDS won only 10 seats in 1999, and 59 in 2002, and was reduced to 37 in subsequent elections. How can they come back to power on their own with 120 seats, when in 2003, they had so many leaders and still only won 59 seats,” he said.
JDS presence is limited to only eight districts, and they might manage to bag 20 to 22 seats, he said. Countering Kumaraswamy’s allegations, Siddaramaiah said that the JDS- Congress alliance was dismantled due to Kumaraswamy’s mistakes.
“The government would have survived for another year if Kumaraswamy had not extended his stay in the US instead of rushing back to take the legislators into confidence. The JDS did not take the senior partner, Congress, into confidence in transferring and appointing chairmen to boards and corporations,” he said.
Thanking the people of Chamuneshwari constituency for electing him five times, he said that there has been a communication gap for over a decade which has worked against him in previous elections, and urged the party workers to defeat GT Deve Gowda. The AHINDA leader hit back for branding him anti-Vokkaliga and Lingayat when his social sector programmes, loan waiver, Indira canteen, and others have catered to the poor from all communities.