BENGALURU: With ruling Congress and main opposition BJP facing crises over the change in leadership, the regional party JDS is quietly organising its rank and file to make an impact during elections to local bodies, including BBMP, that are likely to be announced in November-December.
To make the best of the present advantage and opportunity, JDS may even go it alone in the polls, party sources said. Its alliance partner BJP is struggling to put its house in order with the demand for a change in the state party president post. On the other hand, Congress is facing challenges with party MLAs openly expressing their displeasure over the functioning of the government and its ministers.
JDS has now launched a 57-day membership drive, focusing on the Old Mysuru region, which has been its traditional Vokkaliga bastion, and North Karnataka, where party patriarch HD Deve Gowda and his grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy are touring to garner support for the party, said Nagaraju, a party functionary.
Nikhil told reporters in Mandya on Sunday, “I don’t agree that there will be a political revolution in the state (as predicted by Cooperation Minister KN Rajanna), but people will throw away the Congress government after it completes three years in office. I toured Raichur district and grasped the pulse of the people. Not only JDS workers, but every person in the state feels (Union Minister for Heavy Industries) HD Kumaraswamy should become CM in 2028.”
Gowda’s intervention to get the Centre to announce the minimum support price for mangoes, helping farmers, and Kumaraswamy’s performance as a union minister to the satisfaction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have boosted the morale of party workers, party sources said.
“If Siddaramaiah steps down as CM, the government will get destabilised. But it is too early to predict whether Vokkaligas will rally behind Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar if he becomes CM,” said a JD(S) sympathiser, who is also a Vokkaliga. The priority of JDS is zilla and taluk panchayat polls to keep its base intact, especially in the Old Mysuru region and expand it across the state, another party functionary said.
JDS Legislature Party leader B Suresh Babu said the party will have an edge in the local body polls because of the crisis in Congress. “JDS is likely to continue its alliance with BJP and it will be decided ahead of polls. It will help both parties,” he added.