POLITICS
Why Deve Gowda’s son Revanna thinks Muslims won’t desert JD(S) after alliance with BJP
- Admin
- Oct 05, 2023
Why Deve Gowda’s son Revanna thinks Muslims won’t desert JD(S) after alliance with BJP
Karnataka MLA HD Revanna says Congress has 'no special affection for minorities', his party has 'always stood by' Muslims & '60% of state Congress leaders' are JD(S) imports.
H.D. Revanna fiddles with the remote, trying to turn up the volume. His brother’s on TV. In an interview, former Karnataka CM H.D. Kumaraswamy is justifying the Janata Dal (Secular)’s decision to ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Muslims in Karnataka, Revanna tells , have stood by the JD(S) and will continue to do so. He also asks how Congress, which ‘could not protect’ party veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, can ask the H.D. Deve Gowda-led party to drop the word ‘secular’ from its name.
The Gowda family has occupied this government housing for decades now as Revanna’s father, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, was elected to the Lok Sabha six times from Hassan. In 2019, it was allotted to Revanna’s son Prajwal, who won the seat and became the sole JD(S) member to be elected to the Lower House that year.
In September, the Karnataka High Court declared Prajwal’s election null and void on account of poll-related financial irregularities. The Supreme Court later that same month stayed the judgment of the high court as an interim direction.
Surrounded by people, Revanna juggles phone calls with officials and animated conversations with party workers while answering questions on his party’s alliance with the BJP.
At a party meeting Sunday, Deve Gowda defended his decision to ally with the BJP on the grounds that though the JD(S) faces an existential crisis in its bastion of Old Mysuru, trends suggest that the Vokkaligas have largely backed the JD(S) in local and the BJP in general elections.
The JD(S) allied with the Congress for the 2004 and 2018 assembly polls, besides the 2019 general elections, and with the BJP in 2006 — earning it the moniker of ‘kingmaker’ on some days and ‘opportunist’ on others.
In the polls held this May, it was reduced to 19 seats compared to its tally of 37 in the previous assembly elections in 2018. The JD(S) and the BJP fought bitterly in the assembly elections, even though both parties declared the Congress their ‘common enemy’.
The Gowda family has occupied this government housing for decades now as Revanna’s father, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, was elected to the Lok Sabha six times from Hassan. In 2019, it was allotted to Revanna’s son Prajwal, who won the seat and became the sole JD(S) member to be elected to the Lower House that year.
In September, the Karnataka High Court declared Prajwal’s election null and void on account of poll-related financial irregularities. The Supreme Court later that same month stayed the judgment of the high court as an interim direction.
Surrounded by people, Revanna juggles phone calls with officials and animated conversations with party workers while answering questions on his party’s alliance with the BJP.
At a party meeting Sunday, Deve Gowda defended his decision to ally with the BJP on the grounds that though the JD(S) faces an existential crisis in its bastion of Old Mysuru, trends suggest that the Vokkaligas have largely backed the JD(S) in local and the BJP in general elections.
The JD(S) allied with the Congress for the 2004 and 2018 assembly polls, besides the 2019 general elections, and with the BJP in 2006 — earning it the moniker of ‘kingmaker’ on some days and ‘opportunist’ on others.
In the polls held this May, it was reduced to 19 seats compared to its tally of 37 in the previous assembly elections in 2018. The JD(S) and the BJP fought bitterly in the assembly elections, even though both parties declared the Congress their ‘common enemy’.
