IN a sign of growing tensions in the ruling alliance in Karnataka, former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Friday said that there was no doubt there would be mid-term polls to the State Assembly.Gowda also said that he did not know how long the Congress-JD(S) Government, headed by his son H D Kumaraswamy, would continue and it was in the hands of the senior coalition partner.

 

“There is no doubt that there will be mid-term polls. They (Congress) had said they will give support to us for five years. I am watching all the developments and their behaviour. Our people are intelligent enough. We need not have to teach them,” he told reporters here. Gowda’s salvo came amid reports that Congress Legislature Party leader and former CM Siddaramaiah had conveyed to party President Rahul Gandhi that the alliance was causing damage to the grand old party and it became clear in the recent Lok Sabha polls’ outcome.

 

The BJP had crushed the Congress and JD(S), winning 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats and leaving only one seat each to the two alliance partners. The BJP-backed independent candidate had won the Mandya seat.

 

Gowda said that he has started the exercise of strengthening the party by conducting various meetings with the leaders.

“We will continue doing our work... These programmes will go on. I don’t know how long this Government will stay. It is in the hands of Congress leaders and not Kumaraswamy,” the JD(S) supremo said. He also reminded the Congress leaders again that it was they who had approached the JD(S) to form the Government with Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister. “I was not after the formation of the coalition Government. It is they (Congress) who came to us. I don’t know whether they agreed for it or the Delhi high command directed them to do so,” he added.

 

‘Congress-JD(S) coalition will not last long’: THE BJP on Friday said that the Congress-JD(S) coalition Government in Karnataka will not last long and ‘some options’ will emerge, but it does not see the possibility of mid-term polls.

BJP General Secretary P Muralidhar Rao, who is in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka, said the coalition has lost the people’s mandate, adding MLAs belonging to various parties in the Southern State do not want mid-term polls. Reacting to former Deve Gowda’s comments, Rao said the JD(S) supremo is ‘exceeding his limits’ and ‘his party which has just 37 MLAs has no power to recommend the dissolution of the House’.