Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) leader HD Kumaraswamy is on the right shift mode, one would say.
After his statements that the Congress government may collapse post the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and his speech ending with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in the Karnataka legislative assembly, Kumaraswamy claims that nearly 50 MLAs, led by a senior Congress minister, have held talks with the BJP top leadership to jump ship.
Analysts call it the JDS’ final fight for survival. Just before the Lok Sabha polls, the party headed by its patriarch and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda announced that they would join hands with the BJP and fight the upcoming parliamentary polls. Though many political insiders did not see this as a surprise, but for those within the JDS, it was a jolt just like the results of the Karnataka assembly polls where the party was reduced to only 19 seats out of the total 224, its lowest since 1999.
According to Sandeep Shastri, the JDS thought it would be better to pitch a tent with the BJP than the Congress because the party had had already broken ice with the saffron party earlier and had a better alliance with them than the Grand Old Party, which the JDS had tied up with twice — in 2006 and in 2018.
“If you look closely, the BJP-JDS alliance went off more smoothly rather than the Congress-JDS alliance. In the BJP-JDS alliance, it was the BJP that had a problem with the JDS and not the other way round. Now having gone into a partnership with the BJP, it is important for the JDS to be equally shrill, if not shriller than the BJP in attacking the Congress, especially when they have a fewer number (of seats) than the BJP in the assembly,” Shastri explained.
“It is more for the survival of the JDS that is making Kumaraswamy do this,” he adds.
But the question that is intrinsic to Karnataka politics is whether Vokkaligas, the community that supports JDS and is the second largest voting population in the state, approve of the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ sloganeering and JDs’ alignment with the RSS ideologies. Shastri quips, “I am not sure if it is going well with the Vokkaligas or with the alliance partner BJP, but Kumaraswamy needs to decide which one he wants to keep happy in this equation”.
Upset after their performance in the Karnataka assembly elections, Kumaraswamy blamed the “corrupt administration of Congress” for compelling them to forge alliance with the BJP.
Kumaraswamy also blamed the Muslim community for backstabbing JDS and supporting the Congress, leading to his party’s 2023 poll debacle that saw its seat count falling from 37 to 19.
“Having understood that the JDS’ Muslim base has en masse moved away from them towards the BJP and the Congress, the JDS is now floundering,” a senior Congress minister told News18 on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier in October, after a JDS legislature party meeting, the state presidents of Karnataka and Kerala, CM Ibrahim and CK Nanu were unceremoniously ousted from their posts for “anti-party activities”. Both leaders had openly criticised the decision to ally with the BJP. On December 11, Ibrahim created a breakaway faction along with Nanu and declared itself the “real JDS”. In a parallel national plenary session, they passed resolutions removing Deve Gowda from the party’s national presidency.
It is somewhat ironic that the JDS, established in 1999 by Deve Gowda, was built on the premise to counter the BJP’s communal politics and offer the voters of Karnataka a regional alternative. Though at first, they did not fare well, in 2004, the party secured a notable victory, clinching 58 seats, which political analysts attribute to the consolidation of votes from the Vokkaligas and Muslims, resulting in a substantial increase in its tally.
Here are a few of the instances of the JDS’ political and ideological shift.
After ruling out the possibility of having an alliance with either the Congress or the BJP in for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, just months after the Karnataka assembly polls, a confident JDS patriarch, Deve Gowda, had said, “JDS will never sink…We will fight for Parliamentary elections independently and will not take any help from any party. Let me be very clear.”
In December, 2022 during the run-up to the Karnataka assembly polls, Kumaraswamy had called Union home minister Amit Shah “a political chameleon” and “reincarnation” of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
A year later, Kumaraswamy changed colour. Finding themselves in a situation where they are in a sink or survive mode, the former PM, his son HD Kumaraswamy and grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy were in September 2023 seen meeting with Amit Shah. Soon, a photograph with BJP president JP Nadda and Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant was released and a formal alliance with the BJP was announced on September 22.
The senior Gowda also made an appeal in the first week of December this year during a public meeting in Hassan’ Holenarsipura — align with the local leaders to join forces and fight against the Congress by joining hands with the BJP.
“In my long experience in politics, let them assure you that the results of the assembly polls will not affect the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections. You all should help strengthen the party and the ally BJP win,” Deve Gowda appealed, one that was seen as a deserted call to keep the JDS afloat.
Kumaraswamy’s next move was something that took even political observers by surprise. The former Karnataka chief minister ended his speech in the Karnataka legislative assembly saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
In yet another example, having openly criticised the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat earlier, Kumaraswamy expressed regret over the past comments that were made by him against Bhat. Kumaraswamy had, during a speech in his home constituency Ramanagara, lashed out at Prabhakar alleging that the RSS leader was out to “spoil the people of Ramanagara after having done the same in Dakshina Kannada”.
The JDS leader said he based his earlier statements on the information that was “fed with an intent to mislead him” and would want to wholeheartedly apologise for it. Kumaraswamy was attending an event at the school run by Bhat, who is known for his sharp communal rhetoric and hails from the communally sensitive area of Dakshina Kannada.
“’Be a Roman while in Rome’ that is what Kumaraswamy is doing as a politician. His praising Kalladka Prabhakar and then chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ can be seen as JDS posturing for political gains”, said SA Hemant, another political analyst from Bengaluru.
What the Vokkaligas will object is the JDS’ stand with regards to the BJP, explains Hemanth. “The JDS has been critiquing the BJP and RSS, and now they are singing their paeans. Why this opportunism — the Vokkaliga community would ask,” Hemanth adds.
Every step that is taken by the JDS now is for its political survival, and having burnt their fingers with the Congress, the party feels that they can align with the BJP — a rising star – which will give them a firmer grip, said the analyst.
“Both sons of Deve Gowda, HD Kumaraswamy and HD Revanna have only one ambition in their mind — to ensure that their sons Nikhil Kumaraswamy and Prajwal Revanna’s future is consolidated. If the JDS wins two or three seats (in the 2024 polls), they would be satisfied,” Hemanth points out.