Chennai: The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular) have ‘in principle’ agreed to join hands in Karnataka for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, sources said.
JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda recently met BJP chief JP Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the structure of the alliance, sources said.
HD Deve Gowda, who was the prime minister between June 1996 and April 1997, has sought five Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka. The final decision will be taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sources said.
Though more negotiations are in the pipeline, sources said that 91-year-old Deve Gowda and his son HD Kumaraswamy had put forth the proposal to the BJP only after they met JD(S) stakeholders.
“Consensus (on seat sharing) has been given by JD(S) leaders,” sources confirmed.
The five Lok Sabha seats asked by the JD(S) are Mandya, Hassan, Tumakuru, Chickballapur, and Bengaluru Rural.
The discussions come months after Deve Gowda, in July, said that his party would fight the Lok Sabha elections independently, denying the possibility of an electoral tie-up with the BJP-led NDA.
“Whether we (the party) win five, six, three, two or one seats, we will fight the Lok Sabha elections independently”, Deve Gowda had said.
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