Deve Gowda ‘Seatless’ After 15 Elections in 57 Years, His Search Makes JD(S) and Congress Nervous

Bengaluru: HD Deve Gowda is the only former prime minister who is still active in electoral politics.

The 85-year-old has fought 15 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections since 1962. He has won 13 of them, losing just two in the last 57 years. Except a short period between 1989 and 1991, Gowda has been a member of either state Assembly or Parliament continuously.

Ironically, Gowda is now left with no constituency to fight his 16th election. After a lot of family pressure, the JD(S) patriarch has vacated his safe Hassan Lok Sabha for grandson Prajwal Revanna. Neighbouring Mandya, the strongest seat of the JD(S), has gone to another grandson, Nikhil Kumaraswamy.

And the grandfather who built the party from scratch is now looking at three seats - Bengaluru North, Tumkur and Mysore.

The Congress has refused to cede Mysore to JD(S) because of former CM Siddaramaiah's pressure tactics. Instead, it has ceded Tumkur, currently held by its MP Mudduhanume Gowda, angering local Congress workers, including deputy chief minister G Parameshwara who also hails from there.

Bengaluru North has five Congress MLAs against JD(S)’s two and BJP's one. Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda is the current BJP MP from there.

Local Congress MLAs are upset with the high command ceding the seat to Gowda.

"We have five MLAs. They have just two. It is rightfully ours. How can we back JD(S) here? It will work against us in the upcoming elections," said a Congress MLA.

Bengaluru North has a large number of Vokkaliga or Gowda votes, plus minority votes. Deve Gowda feels that this combination has helped him sail through easily.

However, a section in the JD(S), including his CM-son HD Kumaraswamy, are reportedly opposing his candidature on the grounds that it is a tricky seat, being a city constituency.

According to the JD(S) camp, Gowda is willing to shift to Tumkur where his party did remarkably well in the last assembly elections. But, the local Congress unit is opposing any such move and even threatening to work against its coalition partner.

Gowda was eyeing Mysore-Kodagu seat, currently held by BJP MP Pratap Simha. He thinks it will be much easier to win from there because of a large number of Vokkaliga votes in the constituency.

But former CM Siddaramaiah who hails from Mysore is opposing Gowda's entry and has managed to secure it for his candidate CH Vijayashankar who was earlier BJP MP twice.

A section in the JD(S) camp is also up in arms against the first family fielding two grandsons in the Lok Sabha elections.

Congress leaders and workers from both Hassan and Mandya are openly opposing the third generation Gowdas and some have even defected to the BJP vowing to defeat them.

In Mandya, former Congress MP and cinema star late Ambareesh's wife Sumalatha is adamant about contesting against Nikhil Kumaraswamy. The BJP has offered its support to her. Local Congress workers are also openly backing her.

Some senior JD(S) leaders fear that family politics may backfire, consuming the patriarch himself at the hustings.

The nomination process begins on Tuesday and Gowda has to make up his mind at the earliest.