Karnataka

‘Congress will consider alliance with JD(S)’

NEW DELHI: With the Election Commission announcing the date for byelections to the Legislative Assembly from seven Assembly constituencies in Karnataka, talks of reviving the alliance between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) in the State have again surfaced.

Senior Congress leader from the State M. Veerappa Moily said here on Monday that even though the party was strong enough to contest the byelections on its own, it could consider joining hands with the JD(S) in the interests of defeating “communal forces”.

He hinted that it was for the JD(S), which had joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier, to make its stand clear.

In an informal chat with reporters, he said the nature of any alliance would, however, depend on the kind of response the Congress got from the JD(S) leadership headed by the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda.

Mr. Gowda has been urging for such an alliance with the Congress ever since the BJP succeeded in getting four JD(S) and three Congress MLAs to defect under the BJP’s “Operation Lotus” programme offering ministerial berths to the defectors.

Several senior State-level Congress leaders had a meeting with Mr. Gowda’s son and former Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, about a month ago, but there was no tangible outcome. With the byelections announced, the issue has once again gained urgency.

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