The Congress party, which accused the BJP of horsetrading ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat earlier this month, has welcomed seven JD(S) rebel MLAs suspended from their party for defying the whip and cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls held in June 2016.
After an year of waiting, the rebels finally got to meet AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi at Delhi as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah personally led the delegation and got the approval to induct the JD(S) rebels into the Congress—a formality likely to be held late December or early January.
The move has not only irked the JD(S) leadership but also put the future of the Congress-JD(S) coalition ruling the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) at stake. According to party insiders, the Congress has risked antagonising JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda, who is most likely to emerge as the kingmaker in the event of a hung verdict in the 2018 assembly polls in the state.
“JD(S) (rebel) MLAs are strong in their constituency and it will only benefit the Congress. They are most likely to formally join in December or January. None of them was offered any inducement to cross-vote in the RS polls. They did it on their own. Even now they are joining the Congress on their own. In fact, we expect many BJP men to join us,” said Siddaramaiah, adding that JD(S) would never come to power in Karnataka.
The JD(S) MLAs—Zameer Ahmad Khan (Chamrajpet), N. Cheluvarayaswamy (Nagamangala), H.C. Balakrishna (Magadi), Ramesh Bandisiddegowda (Srirangapatna), Iqbal Ansari (Gangavati), Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy(Pulakeshinagar) and Bheema Nayak (Hagaribommanahalli)—cross-voted in the RS polls, resulting in the defeat of the JD(S) candidate B.M. Farooq. The rebels had voted for K.C. Ramamurthy, an independent candidate who was being supported by the Congress as the third candidate besides Jairam Ramesh and Oscar Fernandes.
A visibly upset H.D. Kumaraswamy launched a tirade against Siddaramaiah and the Congress and threatened to withdraw support in the Bengaluru city corporation. “It is a loot in the BBMP as the high-powered committee is minting crores of rupees. No development work is being carried out. The standing committee is helpless as all powers rest with K.J. George (Bengaluru development minister). We will have to review our decision to support the coalition,” said Kumaraswamy.
Upset with Siddaramaiah's remarks that JD(S) was “confined” to only three to four districts, Kumaraswamy vowed to bag 30 to 40 seat in north Karnataka alone and challenged Siddaramaiah to replicate the two byepolls' success in Nanjangud and Gundlupet, alleging the Congress had flushed in huge money to win the elections.
Taking a dig at Siddaramaiah's claims of a corruption free government, Kumarswamy said, “His MLAs are looting the state and he faces allegations of corruption in Arkavathy denotification case. But he talks of mann ki baat and vaangi baat. When the people of Bengaluru were suffering due to flooding, Rahul Gandhi and Congress leaders were busy savouring bisibele baat.”
Deve Gowda's elder son and Holenarispura MLA H.D. Revanna dubbed the rebels as “shameless” and sought to know why they had not resigned from the assembly before meeting Rahul Gandhi.
Last April, the JD(S) leaders inducted two former MLAs from Nagamangala—L.R. Shivarame Gowda and Suresh Gowda (both from Cheluvarayaswamy's constituency)—in a bid to identify potential candidates for the upcoming polls.
In retaliation, the rebels took out a huge rally in Bengaluru to show their strength and popularity.
Last month, the rebel MLAs seized the opportunity and came out in support of Deve Gowda's grandson Prajwal Revanna, after he kicked up a storm by saying “suitcase culture” was prevalent in the JD(S).
While the Gowda family dismissed it as an “immature” comment and warned Prajwal of “action”, the bitterness between the rebels and the party leadership grew manifold.
While the induction of the JD(S) rebels into the Congress seems imminent, it remains to be seen if all seven get tickets to contest the polls as Deve Gowda, a seasoned politician, is known to play his cards well.
