At Karnataka seat-sharing meeting, JDS bargains for 10 seats in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Mar 06: Congress president Rahul Gandhi met former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (S) leader HD Deve Gowda to discuss the issue of seat-sharing in Karnataka for the coming Lok Sabha elections.

The JDS chief has demanded Congress President Rahul Gandhi to give his party at least 10 seats to contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Karnatak. The meeting lasted around two hours.

AICC's general secretary in Karnataka K C Venugopal and JDS national general secretary Danish Ali were present at the meeting.

"Gandhi discussed about seat sharing in Karnataka. This is the first such discussion between the two parties. There are 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Earlier, I had asked for 12. At the meeting, I requested Rahulji to give at least 10 seats to the JDS," Deve Gowda told reporters.

Gandhi will take the final decision after taking inputs from Ali and Venugopal, he said.

Ali said the seat-sharing arrangement will be announced by March 10.

"At the meeting, the two leaders discussed the prevailing political situation in the country, opposition unity and pre-poll alliance in Karnataka. The Congress would contest two-thirds of the seats and the rest are for the JDS. Seat wise, we have to discuss and finalise. We are going to reach a decision shortly and will announce it by March 10," he said.

Besides Mandya and Hassan (represented in the present Lok Sabha by the JD-S) the party has also sought that its candidates be allowed to contest from Mysore, Chikkaballapur, Tumkur among others.

While the JD(S) is keen to field Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Gowda from Mandya, the wife of Kannada superstar Ambareesh, Sumalathaa, too, wants to contest the seat on Congress ticket.

Congress MLA from Chincholi Umesh Jadhav met Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar and submitted his resignation letter.

The resignation is not likely to alter the party position on the Floor. Jadhav, a two-time MLA, reportedly quit the seat over the denial of ministerial berth during the Cabinet expansion in December.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won nine seats, the JD(S) two and the BJP won 17 seats.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)