Support pours in from southern neighbours
It was a red-letter day for the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), which saw a crucial partnership between DK Shivakumar and HD Kumaraswamy.
More so because two neighbouring Chief Ministers – N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh and K Chandrashekar Rao of Telangana – provided moral support to the Karnataka alliance. The Congress also made a list of its legislators who were likely to be approached by the rival side. In order to prevent this, it asked all of them to install an app to record phone conversations.
These were eventually leaked to the media and helped the Congress build its case that the BJP was “blatantly” trying to poach their newly-elected members.
But Rao, commonly referred to as 'KCR', and Naidu's support came in at a crucial time.
On Thursday evening, the Congress forced to drop its earlier plan to fly its newly elected legislators in chartered flights to Kochi. Earlier, there was a plan to take its legislators to Kerala as it governed by a non-BJP party. But the Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Bengaluru put a spanner on that plan. The Congress desperately needed to take its newly-elected MLAs away from Bengaluru after Shivakumar found that the son of a former BJP minister was with Congress legislators at the Eagleton Resort.
The man was thrown out of the resort, but Shivakumar realised the vulnerability of keeping his flock in Bengaluru for the next fortnight.
It was only on Friday morning that the Supreme Court overruled the Governor and asked BS Yeddyurappa to prove its majority by 4 pm on Saturday.
It was a message from ‘KCR’ on Thursday evening that persuaded the Congress leaders to take the bus route to Telangana’s capital Hyderabad. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders also sent messages of support. Both, ‘KCR’ and Naidu had been in touch with Kumaraswamy during the election campaign, and had appealed to Telugus living in Karnataka to vote against the BJP.
According to sources in the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and TDP, ‘KCR’ and Naidu are upset in the manner in which the BJP leadership treated them in the last four years. They have vowed to help opposition parties fight the 2019 polls.
Meanwhile, Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy, both Vokkaligas, either met or called up Congress legislators who had allegedly received threats. Shivakumar withstood raids from central agencies ever since he kept Congress MLAs from Gujarat in a resort in the run up to the Rajya Sabha election where Congress leader Ahmed Patel was a candidate. “His presence itself was a source of strength for the legislators,” a Congress source said.
Shivakumar is likely to be the next chief of the Karnataka unit of the Congress, with current state unit chief G Parameshwara, the party’s Dalit face, likely to be the deputy chief minister.
Congress leadership has also recognised the “positive” role played by former chief minister Siddaramaiah, who rather than blocking any move to have an alliance with the JD(S), facilitated it. He set aside the bitterness he shares with JD(S) leadership and reached out to HD Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy.
Sources said the cabinet has already been decided, but the true test for the alliance will be the three Lok Sabha byelections in the state, and elections to the two remaining assembly seats. There will also be by-election on one of the two seats that Kumaraswamy has won and would vacate.
The Congress-JD(S) alliance is not going to be eaasy.
The BJP will be on the lookout to unearth scams to embarrass the government in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The JD (S) has been out of power for over a decade and is starved of funds, while the Congress also needs funds for its 2019 battle.