Bengaluru: Janata Dal (S) supremo, H.D. Deve Gowda declared on Saturday that he would no longer contest elections and claimed he had entered the fray in the recent Lok Sabha poll "accidentally."
"It was nothing but an accident that I contested the Lok Sabha elections. Now I have decided that I will not participate in any poll again," he said.
This is not the first time the veteran leader has made such a statement. Since 2004, he has declared at least thrice that he will stay away from elections, only to contest and win. Whenever he changed his mind, he blamed it on pressure from his party workers. Should he go back on his word again, Mr Gowda, now 86 , may have to wait till he turns 91 to contest the next Lok Sabha election.
On accusations, JD(S) pushed for the CM's post, he said, "How can a party with 37 seats stake a claim to the CM's post? We did not want the CM's post. But the Congress party insisted that we should take it."
He also cautioned Congress leaders against blaming the alliance with the JD(S) for its poor performance in the Lok Sabha election from the state.
