Bengaluru, Mar 25: The Janata Dal (Secular), which was supposed to field candidate from Bengaluru North constituency as per seat sharing deal with Congress ahead of next month’s Lok Sbha polls, late last night decided to cede the seat to the latter.
The Congress made an announcement to this effect, an hour past midnight, Sunday. AICC General Secretary and Karnataka in-charge K C Venugopal took to Twitter to thank the JD(S) for returning the seat. "@INCIndia is thankful to Shri H D Deve Gowda ji and the JD(S) for their kind gesture of giving back the Bengaluru North Lok Sabha seat to the Congress. Together, let us reclaim democracy," read his tweet.
Bengaluru North is held by Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda. The BJP has renominated him to contest from the constituency.
Bengaluru North was among the constituencies that JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda was considering his candidature from. However, after much deliberation, he decided to contest from the Tumakuru Lok Sabha constituency. This left his party with no other suitable candidate who could be fielded from Bengaluru North. With no option in sight, it has now decided to return the seat the Congress.
After long drawn negotiations, the ruling partners had sealed a 20-8 deal recently, with the Congress getting 20 seats. The regional, which had initially demanded 12 seats, had however settled for eight seats.
While the JD(S) seemed content with the seats allotted to it, the Congress has been facing difficulty in pacifying its local leaders, who have taken strong exception to its state leaders ceding key constituencies to the regional party.
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