Bengaluru: On 17 October, C.M. Ibrahim, then state president of the Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S), had said that former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda was no longer making decisions “independently”.
“Deve Gowda is under pressure,” Ibrahim told ThePrint. “He can’t make his own decisions. Earlier, he was independent but now he is dependent. (H.D.) Kumaraswamy is taking all decisions.”
Just a day later, Gowda dissolved the state unit of the party and named his son Kumaraswamy as the ‘ad hoc President’ of the JD(S). A day after that, on 19 October, Ibrahim was “removed” from his post as state president.
Kumaraswamy has been steadily tightening his control over the family-led JD(S), at times even steamrolling over his own brother H.D. Revanna to get his way. Political analysts say Kumaraswamy has tactfully assumed command of the party despite appearances suggesting that he is merely being handed over the reins to navigate a crisis.
It is no secret that relations between Revanna and Kumaraswamy’s families have deteriorated in recent times. This has trickled down to the third generation as well with Revanna’s sons JD(S) MP Prajwal and MLC Suraj on one side, and Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil on the other.
Kumaraswamy has also been spearheading talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has faced pushback from within the party. Gowda, so far, has sat out most of the discussions.
“If the party is going with the BJP, it has to be seen as a Kumaraswamy’s act. Then if the party decides to turn away from the BJP (post elections), that option remains open,” says Narendar Pani, a Bengaluru-based political analyst and faculty member at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS).
Within the JD(S), Kumaraswamy is portrayed to be pro-BJP while the others follow his lead. This strategy, say analysts, would give the party a chance to salvage its ‘secular’ credentials should it breakaway from the BJP.
Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy continues to consolidate his hold on the regional outfit which hopes to repeat its 2006 coalition with the BJP. However, circumstances have changed.
The JD(S) and BJP together do not have the numbers to form the government and, unlike in 2006, decisions in the BJP are now taken mostly by the party’s high command in Delhi and not by state leaders.
Also read: Why Deve Gowda’s son Revanna thinks Muslims won’t desert JD(S) after alliance with BJP
‘Kumaraswamy was first choice for party president’
This is the third time Kumaraswamy has been made state president even though he has been taking most decisions on behalf of the party for a while now, people aware of the developments say.
The main grouse of at least two earlier state presidents — A.H. Vishwanath and Ibrahim — was that they had no decision-making powers, only the title.
“This is the third time we are making him (Kumaraswamy) state president. During his two tenures as state president earlier, Kumaraswamy had become chief minister,” Bandeppa Kashempur, a senior JD(S) leader, MLA and Deputy floor leader of the party, told ThePrint.
People aware of the development say that Ibrahim was made state president since he left the Congress and joined the JD(S) on that condition, but it was always Kumaraswamy’s seat.
“We made Ibrahim the president because he had recently come in, otherwise we had discussions (after the elections) to make Kumaraswamy the president,” added Kashempur.
Kumaraswamy has assumed a larger role in the party leadership as an ageing Gowda’s influence wanes, reducing him to the role of mentor. For instance, this year during the assembly elections, Gowda was unable to convince Kumaraswamy to field Revanna’s wife, Bhavani, from Hassan city even though she had announced her candidature publicly.
Analysts say that this is the JD(S) playing to both sides of the gallery. Kumaraswamy, like his father, has had relationships across the aisle. Though he may not be able forge local alliances on his own yet, it is important that the coalition with the BJP appears to be under Kumaraswamy’s leadership.
In 2006, Kumaraswamy went against the party and national president Gowda and joined hands with the BJP to form the government. But Kumaraswamy faced no consequences for his actions and was allowed to return to the party fold and even head it before the 2008 elections.
The JD(S), said Pani, has not even taken any action against the state units of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra who are refusing to accept the alliance. The Kerala unit, in fact, met with Deve Gowda and informed him that the state unit will stand independently.
“We informed them that we are ending the relationship and that we would remain independent and then we came back. We had a committee meeting here and decided to stand independently. Everyone was in agreement with that and that is the factual position,” Mathew T. Thomas, the Kerala state president for the party, was quoted as saying.
MLAs like Sharanagouda Patil Kandakur from Gurmitkal, and Kareema Nayak from Devadurga, along with several district-level leaders, too, have opposed the alliance with the BJP.
Kashempur had played down the problems by stating that only ‘one or two MLAs’ had opposed the alliance. A significant chunk of its Muslims support base has opposed the alliance too, ThePrint had reported.
“Only Kumaraswamy can help us wade through this crisis. Ibrahim had grand plans of becoming a minister if Kumaraswamy became the CM, but Congress got a majority on its own,” a JD(S) leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Ibrahim has also said that he didn’t sign off on any alliance with the BJP and denied that he was part of any discussions.
“They are lying. Please show where this resolution was passed. Why should he (Gowda) at the age of 92 lie for his son? They did not take Prajwal Revanna to Delhi who is the sole JD(S) MP. Instead, they took Nikhil (Kumaraswamy’s son) to Delhi. What is his (Nikhil’s) post in the party?” Ibrahim told reporters in Bengaluru Thursday.
He added that he will approach the court as well as the Election Commission (EC) for breaching the party rules and removing him as state president.
A family divided
Kumaraswamy tightening his grip over the party is also fueling the divide within the Gowda household. H.D. Revanna did not attend the 19 October meeting, but his son and sole JD(S) MP from Karnataka, Prajwal, was present, said party officials.
Nikhil, an actor and former youth president of the party, had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2023 assembly elections.
Kumaraswamy’s wife Anith had given up her Ramanagara assembly seat for son Nikhil in the 2023 elections. Meanwhile, Bhavani was denied a seat from Hassan and Kumaraswamy’s fielded H.P. Swaroop instead.
While the family continues to spar, losing several leaders on the way, data from the 10 May elections present a far more worrying trend for the party.
The vote share of the JD(S) came down from around 18 percent to just around 13 percent and the party lost crucial seats in the Old Mysuru region. As many as 139 JD(S) candidates lost their deposit in the 2023 elections.
Revanna’s winning margin in 2023 from Holenarsipura came down from 43,832 in 2018 to 3,152 in May.
In 2018, Kumaraswamy had contested from two seats — Channapatna and Ramanagara — before giving up the latter seat to his wife, Anita.
In Channapatna, Kumaraswamy won with a margin of 21,530 in 2018. But this lead was reduced to 15,915 in 2023. In the 2023 assembly elections, Nikhil managed to secure just 76,439 votes in Ramanagara even though his mother had won this constituency with a margin of over 1.07 lakhs in the November 2018 bypolls.
Revanna and his sons face charges of election fraud and suppression of income in a case filed by A. Manju, a former BJP candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Manju has since joined the JD(S) and is a legislator from Arkalgud in Hassan district.
Meanwhile, it’s not like all MLAs or leaders of the BJP have accepted this alliance either. Preetham Gowda, S.T. Somashekar and even former chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda has raised concerns over this partnership.
In an exclusive interaction with ThePrint, Sadananda Gowda had raised concerns that the alliance with the JD(S) was taken without consulting the state leaders and could undermine the hard work done by the BJP grassroots in the Old Mysuru districts.