EXCLUSIVE: JD(S) chief HD Kumaraswamy calls Narendra Modi a Tornado!

Bangalore, March 19: With the pressure building up on

chief HD Kumaraswamy, it is still a mystery whether he will contest in the

election and if he does, from which seat.

In an exclusive interview, HDK spoke about his views on upcoming elections, party strategies and the role of young voters in this era.

The party has announced a list of 12 candidates and HDK said that the second list of candidates with the remaining 16 seats will be announced soon.

According to deep throats in the JD(S) camp, most of the seats have been decided upon.

Party workers are pressuring me to stand from Chikkabalapur: HDK

Former Railway Minister and veteran Congress leader Jafar Sharif is likely to be fielded either from Mysore or Bangalore Central. The octogenarian is upset with the high command as he was denied a Congress ticket to contest LS elections. On Tuesday, Sharif and his grandsons met JD(S) supremo Devegowda and discussed the possibilities to contest on their ticket.

Appaji Gowda - the Karnataka state President of Vokkaligara association, might be fielded against Congress's Nandan Nilekani and BJP's Ananth Kumar in Bangalore South.

Realtor Prabhakar Reddy will contest from Bangalore Rural. Reddy lost to BJP's Krishnappa in Bangalore South in Karnataka Assembly Elections of May 2013.

Geetha Shivrajkumar, the wife of actor Shivrajkumar, will be contesting from Shimoga.

The party is yet to take a final call for Chikkaballapur constituency where the options are Srinivas, Munegowda and HDK's wife Anitha.

Meanwhile, he also revealed that party workers are pressuring him to stand and contest from Chikkaballapur constituency.

Though JD(S) will be fielding candidates from all the 28 constituencies, they will be focusing more on 13-14 more important constituencies. Final announcement might come on a mega rally that they will hold on 20th March in Chikkaballapur.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Oneindia: What do you think of Rahul Gandhi? What would you rate him on a scale of 1 to 10?

HDK: Rahul lacks focus. He is literally struggling in politics. He has no idea about anything happening. He is a puppet in the hands of some remote control. I sympathise with him.

Oneindia: What do you think of Narendra Modi?

HDK: I do not deny that Narendra Modi is very speedy. He has overtaken LK Advani in no time at all.

He has acquired a lot of speed like a tornado. It remains to be seen what will be his speed during the landfall.

Oneindia: Is there a change in voter behaviour since 2009 elections?

HDK: Yes it has changed a lot. Ten crore new voters have been registered in the country since 2009. That itself is a big deal. Moreover, the youth have come under tremendous influence of Television and Internet. It remains to be seen how they vote.

Oneindia: The Cvoter survey has given 2 seats for JD(S) in Karnataka. Just two seats?

HDK: Yes two. But the survey has mentioned that JD(S) has strong presence in 12-13 constituencies. The variation between JD(S)-Congress, JD(S)-BJP is minimal in dozen plus constituencies. The results there could be either way.

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