Hassan: H.D. Revanna fiddles with the remote, trying to turn up the volume. His brother’s on TV. In an interview, former Karnataka CM H.D. Kumaraswamy is justifying the Janata Dal (Secular)’s decision to ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Muslims in Karnataka, Revanna tells ThePrint, have stood by the JD(S) and will continue to do so. He also asks how Congress, which ‘could not protect’ party veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, can ask the H.D. Deve Gowda-led party to drop the word ‘secular’ from its name.
“Why should they (Congress) have a problem with whom we ally?” Revanna — a former Karnataka minister and the sitting JD(S) MLA for Holenarsipura — jokes to those standing around him in the hall at the palatial MP quarters in Hassan Tuesday afternoon.
The Gowda family has occupied this government housing for decades now as Revanna’s father, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, was elected to the Lok Sabha six times from Hassan. In 2019, it was allotted to Revanna’s son Prajwal, who won the seat and became the sole JD(S) member to be elected to the Lower House that year.
In September, the Karnataka High Court declared Prajwal’s election null and void on account of poll-related financial irregularities. The Supreme Court later that same month stayed the judgment of the high court as an interim direction.
Surrounded by people, Revanna juggles phone calls with officials and animated conversations with party workers while answering questions on his party’s alliance with the BJP.
At a party meeting Sunday, Deve Gowda defended his decision to ally with the BJP on the grounds that though the JD(S) faces an existential crisis in its bastion of Old Mysuru, trends suggest that the Vokkaligas have largely backed the JD(S) in local and the BJP in general elections.
The JD(S) allied with the Congress for the 2004 and 2018 assembly polls, besides the 2019 general elections, and with the BJP in 2006 — earning it the moniker of ‘kingmaker’ on some days and ‘opportunist’ on others.
In the polls held this May, it was reduced to 19 seats compared to its tally of 37 in the previous assembly elections in 2018. The JD(S) and the BJP fought bitterly in the assembly elections, even though both parties declared the Congress their ‘common enemy’.
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‘Muslims will stay with JD(S)’: Revanna
“Look, the Muslims will go nowhere… they will stay with us. We have both stuck together. Why is the Congress so worried about who we ally with? Deve Gowda knows his politics. As long as we are alive…I have even told my children that we will remain close to the Muslim community…,” Revanna tells ThePrint when asked whether the alliance with the BJP has led to unease within the JD(S) and among its voters, especially Muslim voters.
The Congress, too, has cited the induction of the JD(S) into the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) last month to question the secular credentials of the Gowda-led party.
“The same Congress came to Hassan in 2018 and called us the ‘B’ team (of the BJP). Who helped defeat Deve Gowda in Tumkur? Who helped the BJP win in Mandya, in Kolar? You must understand that for power and business, they (Congress) said to keep communal forces at a distance, but the Congress has no special affection for minorities,” he says.
While Kumaraswamy has made remarks to the effect that the JD(S) stood by Muslims but did not get anything in return, his brother Revanna seems to be taking the middle path.
Addressing questions about the party’s secular credentials, Revanna emphasises that his father introduced quotas for minorities in 1994, adding that the JD(S) has “never left the side of Muslims”.
“In this country, did Congress give reservation (for minorities) in its 60 years? They were there for 60 years, did they give reservations (to Muslims) in any state? Didn’t Deve Gowda have to come as CM to give reservations? Who gave reservations for small communities?”
When he was chief minister of Karnataka in 1994, Deve Gowda created a “2B” category in the state list of backward classes to introduce quotas for Muslims. And in March this year, the JD(S) had opposed the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government’s decision to scrap the 4 percent reservation granted to Muslims under this category.
Muslims account for about 13 percent of Karnataka’s population, and the consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the Congress was touted as one of the reasons the JD(S) lost significant ground in Old Mysuru.
Revanna adds, “They (Congress) say they will protect minorities. But look at Ghulam Nabi Azad…he worked with Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, but in the Rajya Sabha, he shed tears. A Muslim worker who worked for the Congress for at least five decades cried. When they could not provide protection to such a person, who else would they protect?”
‘Over 60% Congress leaders in state from JD(S)’
Brushing aside reports of opposition within the party to the alliance with the BJP, Revanna says the JD(S) has never been power-hungry.
He refers to a 2018 conversation between party leaders and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during which, he says, the PM offered to endorse a full term for Kumaraswamy as chief minister if the JD(S) were to part ways with the Congress and ally with the BJP.
There are still eight months for the elections and the party will find a way to make peace and work with the BJP, says Revanna.
“Many who assured Kumaraswamy that they would not leave the party, joined other parties. The JD(S) is a legislator-making factory. There is no one from the original Congress. More than 60 percent (of leaders in the Karnataka Congress) are from the JD(S).”
One of those leaders is Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, who was with the JD(S) until 2006 when the party expelled him.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)