H D Deve Gowda unites sons, wins over Chief Minister

Bengaluru: At a time when everyone was set to write off the JD (S) in Karnataka, party supremo H. D. Deve Gowda has come up trumps by uniting his warring sons H. D. Kumaraswamy and H. D. Revanna, and making peace with his lieutenant turned bitter rival Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The upshot: Mr. Kumaraswamy would return to head the state unit while his elder sibling Mr. Revanna would be elected the party’s floor leader in the Legislative Assembly with the patriarch himself set to assume the role of a mentor and spend more time in the state.

Sources in the party said Mr. Gowda commenced his ground work soon after Lok Sabha elections were declared. With no major elections in the offing, barring one to local bodies in the state, Mr Gowda decided to work to strengthen the party which has been plagued by problems. While his sons bond well at home, they were ill at ease when it came to party matters.

To make matters worse, Mr. Siddaramaiah, who has a fairly good relationship with Mr. Revanna, was out to get both Mr Kumaraswamy and Mr Gowda. Therefore, Mr. Gowda decided to resolve these two issues before taking up internal problems of the party.

During the last Assembly session, Mr Gowda struck a truce with Mr. Siddaramaiah, assuring him all cooperation from legislators of JD(S) at a meeting arranged by a senior Congress leader in New Delhi. Besides, he ensured that his party legislators who were hobnobbing with the Chief Minister and stood by Mr. Kumaraswamy.

The next problem was about uniting his sons who nursed political differences. From his younger days, Mr Revanna took care of his father's constituency, Holenarasipur, and grew in stature first as a ZP member and later MLA.

However, Mr Kumaraswamy had a meteoric rise in politics by becoming MP in his first attempt and later inheriting his father's second constituency- Ramanagar. As a first time MLA, he also became the CM, while his elder sibling and four-time MLA Mr. Revanna remained a minister.