Suffered A Lot Because Of Congress, Will Fight By-Polls Alone, Says Deve Gowda As EC Announce Dates

As the Election Commission announced dates for the by-polls in 15 Assembly constituencies of Karnataka, JDS chief and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda on Saturday said that his party suffered a lot because of the Congress and that there will be no alliance for the by-elections.

"HD Kumaraswamy, who was the Chief Minister heading the coalition government has already declared that we want to contest all 15 constituencies. The suffering he faced at the hands of Congress, he does not want it anymore," ANI quoted Deve Gowda as saying.

The resignations of 17 rebel MLAs led to the collapse of the HD Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JDS government in Karnataka, where by-polls will be held on October 21. The MLAs were disqualififed by the then Karnataka Assembly Speaker, leaving their seats vacant. They had moved the Supreme Court challenging the Speaker's move but didn't get any respite as the top court refused to stay their disqualification.

However, the Election Commission has not announced the date of by-polls in two of the 17 constituencies - Maski and RR Nagar as cases related to these constituencies are still pending in the Karnataka High Court.

Also Read | Deve Gowda targets Siddaramaiah over Collapse of JDS-Congress government in Karnataka

After the fall of the Congress-JDS government in Karnataka, the former prime minister had said that his son and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy was never at peace while serving the state and claimed that Kumaraswamy cried for 15 minutes sitting in JP Bhavan.

Deve Gowda had also blamed Siddaramaiah for the collapse of Congress-JDS coalition government, saying that he was not taken into confidence by the Congress high-command when they decided to make Kumaraswamy the chief minister.

I have clearly said that without taking Siddaramaiah, who was Chief Minister for five years, into confidence, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi all of a sudden came and said Kumaraswamy is the next Chief Minister, it was their wrong decision, Gowda told reporters in Bengaluru after the collapse of his son's government.

Since day one, the coalition government was facing trouble from within as barring the top leaders of both parties, their rank and file did not accepted the alliance. Reflecting strains in the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka, Kumaraswamy had once said he was "not happy" being in the top post and was swallowing the pain like 'Vishakantha' (Lord Shiva), who drank poison.

At one stage, many legislators and also Ministers from the Congress demanded that their legislature party chief Siddaramaiah be made the Chief Minister, prompting Kumaraswamy to even threatening to step down before the rebels took the decisive step of resigning as MLAs.