Congress & JDS may go for friendly fight during Lok Sabha polls

With the announcement of Lok Sabha polls less than three weeks away, the Congress and the JDS may opt for a friendly fight as they did during the elections to urban local bodies last year. Both parties have their own reasons for this although they have been running a coalition government in Karnataka for the past eight months, and fought the recent Assembly and Lok Sabha bypolls by amicably sharing seats.

Sections of Congress leaders have been against conceding the nine seats that the JDS has been demanding: Bidar, Vijayapura, Raichur, Bengaluru North, Tumakuru, Mandya, Hassan, Mysuru and Shivamogga. The party does not have qualms to concede some seats where either the JDS or the BJP is very strong. Congress leaders are also not much in favour of giving up Mandya on the grounds that the party candidate, actor Ramya, lost by a margin of 5,400 votes in 2013 polls. In the recent bypoll, the JDS won as the Congress did not field its nominee but the BJP ended up showing an impressive gain by polling 265,000 votes.

“State Congress leaders do not seem to be ready for a tie-up with the JDS as they are not sure if such a pact will lead to the transfer of the JDS votes to its nominees in the Old Mysuru region,” said S Mahadeva Prakash, political analyst. He cited the case of Mandya where the BJP always polled less than 100,000 votes but crossed 200,000 votes this time as many of the Congress votes went to the BJP candidate despite its low-key campaign efforts.


Some weeks ago, when the JDS held constituency-level meetings with its workers, they opposed pre-poll understanding with the Congress and pitched for a friendly fight between the two parties. Sections of the Congress leaders too believe that conceding half a dozen or more seats in South Karnataka to the JDS will only weaken the party base and they would not be able to rebuild it later.