Deve Gowda in catch-22 as JD(S) first family divided over fielding its new face from Hassan

The patriarch is expected to call another family meeting in the coming days in a bid to work out a conciliation and consensus on the matter, even as Bhavani has continued to be insistent on contesting from Hassan.

“On the issue of Hassan there is no change in my stand,” Kumaraswamy said Monday, indicating that Bhavani’s attempts to secure the JD(S)’s nomination against the sitting BJP MLA Preetham Gowda in Hassan had been rebuffed by the family elders.

Kumaraswamy had drawn a lot of flak over the failed debut of his son Nikhil Kumaraswamy in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls while Deve Gowda and Revanna’s son Prajwal Revanna were also in the fray. He has now suggested the candidature of a local JD(S) worker H P Swaroop as its candidate from Hassan to dispel the perception about the party being “entirely family-centric”.

However, Bhavani has been waiting to make her debut in the Assembly polls for several years after having served in the Hassan Zilla Panchayat as an elected member. She is also reportedly holding a grudge against Hassan’s incumbent BJP MLA for allegedly speaking about her in a “demeaning manner”.

In the polls the JDS is set to field Kumaraswamy from Channapatna in the Mandya region, Revanna from Holenarasipura in the Hassan district and Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Ramanagara in place of his mother and its sitting MLA Anita Kumaraswamy.

The JD(S) camp also has Revanna’s sons, Prajwal and Suraj, as the MP and the MLC, from Hassan respectively.

There is speculation that Bhavani may even contest as an Independent in the event of being denied a JD(S) ticket from Hassan. “It is speculation. She (Bhavani) should be asked these questions,” Kumaraswamy said.

Deve Gowda would take a decision on fielding Bhavani after his return from New Delhi, Kumaraswamy said. “In the matter of the Hassan seat a lot of issues have been discussed. We will take a decision in a relaxed manner. Deve Gowda has gone to Delhi and after he comes back a final decision will be taken,” he said, adding that “We will take the views of the people into consideration and the views of the party workers before Deve Gowda decides”.

The senior JD(S) leader said he would file his nomination on April 19 and that his son Nikhil would do it on April 17.

Revanna also said that the party patriarch would take a call on his wife’s candidature from Hassan.

The JD(S) is expected to release its second list of candidates in the next few days while a final list would be released later, Kumaraswamy said. “We have prepared a second list of around 40 candidates. The third list will take around three days,” he said.

In December, the JDS was first off the block among the three leading contenders, including the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress, when it released a first list of 93 candidates, including for 26 of the 37 seats that the party won in the 2018 polls. These 93 seats are those where the JD(S) essentially considers itself to be in reckoning in the state.

Of the 37 seats the JD(S) had won in 2018, 27 were in the south Karnataka region, known as Mysuru Karnataka, where the party is a formidable force on account of the support it draws from the region’s dominant Vokkaliga community due to the Deve Gowda factor.

With the 2023 polls widely seen as possibly the last state election with the active participation of the ex-PM, the JD(S) is hoping to do well in the polls.

While the JD(S) has announced candidates for the majority of 27 seats in the Mysuru-Karnataka region that it won in 2018, the party has not named its nominees for the six seats it had bagged in the Hassan district, which is dubbed Revanna’s “fiefdom”.

Kumaraswamy has maintained that the JD(S)’s aim is to win 123 of the state’s total 224 seats, but has also suggested that the BJP will have to turn to the JD(S) to retain power in the event of a hung House. Deve Gowda has maintained warm relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is likely to hold the JD(S) in good stead in this regard.

Kumaraswamy is attempting to project the JD(S) as a regional party that is a “protector” of the land, water resources, language and cultural rights of the people of Karnataka while suggesting that the national parties – the BJP and Congress – are “impediments” to such an assertion of local identities and rights.

Since its triumph in the 1994 Assembly polls when the then undivided Janata Dal won 115 seats and Deve Gowda became the CM, the JD(S), which emerged out of the Janata Dal implosion ahead of the 1999 polls, has managed to win a maximum of 58 seats in the 2004 polls. Despite the sharp dip in its electoral fortunes since, the JD(S) has still managed to remain a key player even if it ends up winning only about 40 seats.

A hung verdict in the 2018 assembly elections in Karnataka – when the JD(S) won 38 seats, the Congress 78 seats and the BJP 104 seats – put the JD(S) in the kingmaker’s role which mirrored the scenario of the 2004 polls, when the Congress got 65 seats, BJP 79 seats and JD(S) 58 seats.