The coordination committee comprising of bigwigs from the JD(S) and Congress met to finalise the seat-sharing formula in Karnataka for the Lok Sabha polls 2019. But the parties have failed to arrive at a consensus, with neither the JD(S) nor the Congress happy with the seats being offered
Bengaluru: The Congress and JD(S) might have joined hands in Karnataka with a view to keeping the BJP at bay, but one has to accept the fact that the coalition has had a terrible run in the last one year. From confessing to being a ‘clerk-like’ chief minister to comparing himself to ‘Vishakantha’, HD Kumaraswamy has been openly bared his predicament.
Now, the coalition partners have one more grouse to add to their unending list of headaches. And, that is the seat-sharing formula for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Again here, the mantra is to keep the saffron party out of power, but in the process, the coalition partners have failed to realise that they are exposing themselves.
On Monday morning, bigwigs from both the JD(S) and Congress met up to hold what’s called a coordination committee meeting. But much to the contrary, it was chaos and confusion that reigned supreme. The issue was to discuss how many seats each of the partners would contest, but the leaders failed to arrive at a conclusion.
The JD(S) wants as many as 12 seats in its kitty, whereas the Congress is ready to give only eight seats out of the total 28 in the state. That Congress is a national party with a history of over a hundred years, it is sure that it is feeling the pressure that a regional party like the JD(S) is dictating terms to it.
Sources say that the JD(S) is adamant on the number of seats it wants to contest. Moreover, when it comes to important seats – Hassan and Mandya – the JD(S) has already made it a foregone conclusion that these two constituencies have already been declared ‘no-contest’ zones for the Congress.
Obviously, the Congress has taken umbrage to this fact as chief minister Kumaraswamy displayed a flippant attitude when Siddaramaiah tried to negotiate with him on this aspect, and just barged out of the room.
But on his part, head of the coordination committee Siddaramaiah played the devil’s advocate in front of the media, saying that they were moving in the right direction.
As things stand currently, nothing clear has emerged. The two parties will meet once more before finalising the issue by March 10.
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