Bengaluru/New Delhi: The Janata Dal (Secular) Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance, paving the way for a pre-poll alliance in Karnataka in the next year’s parliamentary election .
With the Congress eating into the votebanks of both these parties in the southern state, the two parties joined forces for a common objective — the BJP seeking to retain its 2019 Lok Sabha tally of 25 seats and the H.D. Deve Gowda-led JD(S) winning a few seats in parliamentary elections to arrest the slide in its political fortunes in its home state.
“Met former chief minister of Karnataka and JD(S) leader Shri HD Kumaraswamy in the presence of our senior leader and Home Minister Shri Amit Shah ji. I am happy that JD(S) has decided to be part of the National Democratic Alliance. We wholeheartedly welcome them in the NDA. This will further strengthen NDA vision of Hon PM Narendra Modi ji for ‘New India, Strong India’,” BJP president J.P. Nadda tweeted.
This is the second time that the two parties are joining hands after 2006 when they formed the government in Karnataka. At that time, Deve Gowda was hospitalised over the betrayal of his son H. D. Kumaraswamy to ally with what he called a communal outfit. However, this time around, the alliance talks had the JD(S) patriarch’s blessings and formal approval.
Though the two parties have so far been reluctant to admit the possibility of a pre-poll alliance, the Friday announcement not just formalises it but also sets the tone for the 2024 general election in which the BJP is hoping to repeat its 2019 performance — 25 out of the 28 total parliamentary seats.
According to sources, JD(S) had proposed to contest from four Lok Sabha seats of Hassan, Bengaluru Rural, Mandya and Chikballapur.
“Union home minister Amit Shah and PM Modi have participated in several rounds of talks. Amit Shah ji had at that time given green signal for giving these seats to JD(S),” said a BJP leader.
After the loss in the Karnataka election, the BJP has been adopting the strategy of expanding its alliance partners. In Karnataka, the matter was stuck on seat distribution, BJP sources told ThePrint.
According to the sources, following this pre-poll alliance, a meeting between H.D. Deve Gowda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi may also take place. Party leaders aware of the developments told ThePrint that the BJP will contest in 24-25 seats while the JD(S) will be given 3-4 seats.
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Win-win situation for both parties
For the BJP, the alliance will give it a formal footing in the Old Mysuru region where it has so far depended on informal understandings with the JD(S) and smaller outfits to take on the Congress.
The alliance, a political analyst said, is also the coming together of the Lingayat-backed BJP and Vokkaliga-backed JD(S), bringing together the two dominant communities to take on the Siddaramaiah-led Congress’s attempts to further consolidate backward classes and minorities.
“The alliance is an acceptance of the BJP that they cannot wipe out JD(S) in the Old Mysuru region. That they (the BJP) are willing to concede that space (region), ” Narendar Pani of National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) told ThePrint.
This is the second pre-poll alliance in JD(S) history after the party joined hands with the Congress before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, the BJP attempted to make inroads in some parts of Old Mysuru during the assembly bypolls in December 2019 and also when it decided to officially back the independent candidature of Sumalatha Ambareesh against Kumaraswamy’s actor son Nikhil in Mandya.
Sumalatha won the high-decibel battle and fueled talks that the JD(S) was conceding ground to both the Congress and the BJP.
Pani said it would not be right to apply conventional wisdom on the alliance that the BJP-plus JD(S) equals a certain number. He added that this alliance is certainly an advantage to the Congress since it allows them to contest the word ‘secular’ in the JD(S).
According to a senior BJP leader, the party became open to the idea of an alliance after the poll-drubbing the party received in the 2023 assembly election in Karnataka. Though the BJP has been in power twice in 2006 and 2018, it never managed to win a majority in the assembly polls because of its limited presence in several districts of southern Karnataka.
In 2023, the BJP retained its vote share of 36 percent despite losing 38 seats from its 2018 tally of 104, but won just 66 seats in 2023. The Congress’s vote share went up from 38 percent to 42.9 percent.
The JD(S) was the biggest loser among the big three parties with only 13.3 percent vote share, losing nearly 5 percentage points, which was seen to have directly shifted to the Congress in Old Mysuru.
As it ended with 19 seats, the poll result added to the JD(S) insecurity of getting wiped out on account of fights within the Gowda family as well as the Congress gaining more ground in its bastions.
Pani observed that the JD(S) also stands to lose out in some aspects due to the pre-poll alliance since it can no longer take in rebel BJP candidates.
The JD(S) has been a safe haven to several rebel candidates like A. Manju who decide to approach the party when their parent outfits deny them tickets. Manju successfully contested this year on a JD(S) ticket from Arkalgud. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he was the BJP candidate against Deve Gowda’s grandson Prajwal in Hassan.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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