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BJP-JD(S) alliance final for Lok Sabha, Amit Shah agrees to give 4 seats to Deve Gowda's party
BJP-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka for 2024 Lok Sabha election is final, Yediyurappa announced.
The BJP and the JD(S) have sealed their alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha election 2024 in Karnataka, BJP leader and former chief minister BS Yediyurappa confirmed on Friday. The agreement has been for four seats, Yediyurappa said adding that Amit Shah agreed to give four Lok Sabha seats to JD(S). JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda recently met BJP chief JP Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah and the meeting indicated that BJP and the JD(S) would walk into an alliance -- only the details were pending.
JD(S) came into an alliance with the Congress and formed the government with HD Kumaraswamy as the chief minister. The government was ousted after it lost the trust vote in 2019, a year after it came to power.
According to reports, JDS wanted to contest from Mandya, Hassan, Tumakuru, Chickballapur and Bengaluru Rural. BJP agreed to let it contest on four seats -- Kolar, Hassan, Mandya and Bengaluru rural.
The move comes days after Deve Gowda claimed that his party was neither with the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) nor with the NDA. JD(S), Deve Gowda said, would fight the Lok Sabha elections independently.
Once an ally of the Congress -- though unnatural -- JDS was not invited to the INDIA meeting held in Bengaluru. "Some (Karnataka) Congress leaders did not want me... Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is my good friend (but) since Congress doesn't want me... I skipped," Deve Gowda said when the second meeting of the opposition alliance was held in the city.
A meeting was held on Wednesday at the residence of Deve Gowda to seek the opinion of the party functionaries on the prospective alliance. Most leaders have given their opinion in favour of an alliance with the BJP.
In 2019 Lok Sabha election, JDS won Hassan where Deve Gowda's grand nephew Prajwal Revanna contested.
