S R Srinivas, who represented Karnataka’s Gubbi constituency four times, and his supporters from Tumkur district joined the Congress on Thursday in the presence of party state chief D K Shivakumar and Opposition leader Siddaramiah. Also known as Gubbi Srinivas, he was expelled from the JD(S) after allegations that he cross-voted during the 2021 Rajya Sabha elections. Srinivas said he was “insulted and thrown” out of the party for no fault of his. “I had contested gram panchayat elections on a Congress ticket. Now I feel I am returning home. It was also the wish of my dad, who passed away a few months back, to win on a Congress ticket,” he said. Srinivas became an independent MLA in 2004 and later won the seat three times for the JD(S). A few days ago, he resigned as the MLA. He had participated in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra when it passed through Tumakuru, making it clear that he would join the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections. There was friction between Srinivas and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy after the former chief minister announced a new Gubbi candidate at a meeting in Tumkur held in Srinivas’s absence in 2021. Shivakumar said that several gram panchayat-level BJP and JD(S) leaders from Tumkur, Mandya and other districts would join the Congress in the coming days. He said leaders from other parties joining the Congress was “a clear indication that there is an anti-incumbency wave and the people want to weed out the BJP from power”.
