JDS staring at split, ball in Gowda’s court

Faced with opposition to his move to break with the BJP, Deve Gowda had on Monday assured his MLAs of an alternate arrangement to stay in power within the next seven days. JD(S) sources said the party is almost certain to lose a major chunk of the 40 MLAs still loyal to it in case the Assembly is dissolved. “The MLAs are considering drifting to the BJP or the Congress or creation of a new party. They have decided to wait for a few days,” a JD(S) leader said.

Mahima Patel, JD(S) MLA and son of former Chief Minister J H Patel, who parted ways with the party when the party ditched the BJP in October, has already created a new party called Suvarna Yuga. In fact, of the 58 MLAs originally elected to the Karnataka Assembly on JD(S) tickets in the 2004, eight have already drifted to the Congress under the leadership of former deputy CM Siddaramaiah. He has since got himself re-elected on a Congress ticket.

Another 10 MLAs are either firmly with Gowda or out of favour with the family. It is the remaining 40 MLAs who are waiting to see if an alternate arrangement would emerge to stay in power. They would explore options including revival of the old Janata Parivar in case Gowda was not able to keep his promise, JD(S) sources said.

The BJP, on the other hand, began chalking out a program to kick off an agitation for being “betrayed” a second time. “Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy have become hat-trick heroes on breaking promises. They betrayed the Congress once and the BJP twice,” state party chief D V Sadananda Gowda said.