Bengaluru: With coalition partners Congress and JD(S) still struggling to come to a seat sharing deal for the Lok Sabha polls and local leaders making no secret of their animosity, Congressmen in particular wonder if they made a strategic mistake by going ahead with an alliance in the first place.
The JD(S) is demanding a minimum 9-10 parliamentary seats of the total 28 including high profile ones like Mandya, Mysuru, Hassan, Tumakuru and Chikkaballapur where Congress workers want party candidates to contest. A few Congress legislators and ex-MLAs of these five districts have openly told state leaders that they will remain neutral if their seats are given to the JD(S). In a seat like Chikkaballapur which the JD(S) is eyeing, sitting MP Veerappa Moily has without mincing words, reminded the JD(S) that CM H.D. Kumaraswamy was relegated to third place in the 2014 polls.
The enmity is more than evident in Hassan where former Congress minister, A Manju has announced that he will not campaign for the JD(S) if Prajwal Revanna, son of PWD Minister H.D. Revanna is given the JD(S) ticket.
The Congress dilemma is that if it gives the JD(S) 9-10 seats, it would be left with 18 or 19 seats in coastal Karnataka, Mumbai-Karnataka and Hyderabad-Karnataka where the BJP claims to have a strong base.
A Congress leader told DC that an alliance with JD(S) is a risky proposition especially after the air strike on Pakistan and Congress president Rahul Gandhi's hope of getting 20 seats from Karnataka may seem a bit too far fetched. Instead, the party should have gone for a friendly fight and made the best of the opportunity to field Congress candidates in all 28 LS constituencies.
