Former BJP Minister S.T. Somashekar, rumoured to be contemplating joining the Congress, on Thursday openly expressed his dissent over the saffron party’s alliance with the JD(S).
The Yeshwantpur MLA, who has been miffed ever since the BJP faced a massive defeat in the Assembly polls, claimed he was not taken into confidence before finalising the alliance with the BJP. He claimed that several people were unhappy with the alliance both in the Congress and the BJP but were not speaking up.
The former Minister explained that he had fought the JD(S) through his career for over 20 years. “In my constituency, the JD(S) was my opponent when I was with the Congress and now in the BJP,” he said, adding that workers had faced harassment at the hands of the JD(S). To all of a suddenly strike an alliance “without taking anybody into confidence”, he said, was problematic. He claimed it would have an adverse impact on the Lok Sabha elections for both the JD(S) and the BJP.
Mr. Somashekar was with the Congress until 2019 and had joined the BJP in “Operation Kamala” with others, bringing down the then Congress-JD(S) government. He was a Minister in governments headed by both B.S. Yediyurappa and later Basavaraj Bommai.
