Will Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ‘hand’ reduce JD(S) to three?
Bengaluru: One could certainly dub it ‘Operation Hand’ whether Congressmen like it or not. And it is sure to take the sheen off the JD(S) performance in the Lok Sabha polls with the party’s tally set to crash to 2-3 seats instead of the 8-10 Mr Deve Gowda and son H.D. Kumaraswamy had dreamt of some time ago.
In the driver’s seat for the operation was none other than Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who with his team, quietly unleashed Operation Hand wooing Janata Dal (S) candidates and making them withdraw from the contest or getting JD (S) district cadre to cross over to the Congress overnight.
When the Lok Sabha poll campaign started, the ‘father-and-son’ party as the JD(S) is often described, had high hopes of winning 8-10 seats so that they could play a major role at the Centre in the post-poll scenario.
However, the plan crashed with Mr Siddaramaiah and his team pulling the rug from beneath the JD (S) leaders’ feet. Now most poll analysts agree that the JD (S) may at the best not win more than two or three seats.
The seats where the party has high hopes are Chikballapur and Hassan while in Mandya, it is heavily banking on Congress' infighting to sail through.
This time, the JD(S) faced too many problems across the state, especially in the North-Karntaka region. Its troubles came out in the open when party leader, Iqbal Ansari 'openly' declaring support for the Congress in Koppal.
Even before state leaders could digest this development, the Congress party dealt severe blows in quick succession to the JD(S) in Uttara Kannada, Belgaum and Chamrajnagar Lok Sabha constituencies, where its candidates withdrew from the contest blaming party leaders for not keeping to the promise of giving them 'suitable support' for contesting the elections.
The master blow however, was delivered by none other than Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who ironically played a crucial role in building the JD(S) from scratch in the Nineties after he and H.D. Deve Gowda separated from the Janata pariwar.
Almost two decades later, in 2014, Mr Siddaramaiah seems to have pulled off another coup by limiting the JD(S) strength to the Vokkaliga heartland, which comprises of just eight Parliament seats of the 28 in Karnataka.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader close to the CM said, "Mr Siddaramaiah's confidence that the Congress will win at least 20 seats in this general election, can be attributed to this coup. He feels, he can win these seats after reducing the JD(S) to a sub-regional party from the status of a regional party in the state."
This strategy reminds one of Operation Lotus adopted by the powerful Reddy brothers of Bellary and former chief minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa to ensure the BJP a clear majority after the assembly polls held in 2008. The only difference: Siddaramaiah did not wait for the polls to be over!
