Bengaluru: In a significant development, leaders of JD(S) who were facing a rebellion, managed to woo rebel legislators back to their camp at a time when they had threatened to vote for Congress candidate K C Ramamurthy during the Rajya Sabha polls.
While state unit president H D Kumaraswamy managed to negotiate with Magadi MLA Mr H C Balakrishna, JD(S) candidate Mr Farookh himself negotiated with Gangavati MLA Mr Iqbal Ansari.
Sources in the party said Mr Balakrishna, who returned from an overseas tour with his family, held one round of talks with Mr Kumaraswamy, and posed a rider that the former chief minister should promise to take everybody into confidence about affairs of the party.
Meanwhile , Mr Farookh went to Mr Iqbal Ansari to negotiate. Since some minority community leaders also mediated, Mr Ansari agreed to bury the hatchet and vote for Mr Farookh.
The JD (S) leaders, however, are in a dilemma over whether to withdraw their second candidate Dr Venkatapathi to ensure a smooth sail of BJP’s second candidate Mr Lehar Singh.
Efforts are on to see if they could split the votes of Congress legislators too. Leaders of both BJP and JD(S) approached over ten Congress legislators who are fence-sitters and miffed with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Besides, some of senior original Congress leaders are also being tapped to see if they could be of any help in the forthcoming polls. On the issue of talks with BJP leaders, the JD (S) seems content with securing second preference votes for Mr Farookh’s victory.
