Bengaluru: While the way has now been paved for a Janata Dal (Secular)–Congress coalition government, a section of legislators from both parties are not sure it will survive even a year given the differences between the two parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s expected tactics to bring it down.
A senior Janata Dal (Secular) legislator believes there will be a constant threat to the new government from both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party national president, Amit Shah. “Arm twisting will be the order of the day. So it’s difficult to predict how long this new dispensation under our party chief H. D. Kumaraswamy will survive,” he said, adding that although it seemed all hunky dory between the Congress party and the Janata Dal (Secular) for now, this may not last for very long.
“This time around we struggled to secure votes from the Muslim community. A case in point is Hassan city where Pritam Gowda won. Although there are nearly 24000 Muslim votes in the constituency, we received only 800. In several constituencies, Muslim leaders even returned our money saying they were voting for the Congress. It is hard to digest that we are forging an alliance with a party that called us the B team of the Sanghh Parivar and deprived us of these votes,” he admitted.
A senior legislator of the Congress believes the alliance may survive only until the Lok Sabha polls next year, as differences could crop up over seat sharing in the Vokkaliga belt.
“Of the eight Lok Sabha seats in the belt (excluding Bengaluru), the Congress party has been winning five, Kolar, Tumakuru, Chikkaballapura, Chamarajanagar and Bengaluru Rural. This leaves only two seats in this belt, Mandya and Hassan for the Janata Dal (Secular). Will it agree to such seat sharing with the Congress in a region, where it is considered to be a formidable force?” he asked pertinently.
