Siddaramaiah to be a proposer for Meira Kumar, JD(S) to support

Bengaluru: In a tit for tat strategy, Congress high command on Sunday asked Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah to sign as one of the proposers for UPA nominee for President's post Meira Kumar.

Siddaramaiah was picked by Congress soon after state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa was asked to sign for NDA’s Ram Nath Kovind's candidature for president last week. He did the preliminary formality at the KPCC office here and is scheduled to visit New Delhi on June 28 for completing it, the CM’s office informed.

Last week, Yeddyurappa had been to New Delhi to sign as one of the proposers.These gestures are apparently seen as a political strategy to send out a message to the Dalit faction in the state with an eye on polls.. Siddaramaiah has been doling out sops for Dalits ahead of assembly polls in Karnataka.

In a surprise development the JD(S), which had declined to support the ruling party in the voting of no confidence motion moved against Karnataka legislative council chairman DH Shankaramurthy of the BJP has extended support to the UPA's presidential candidate.

Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and JD(S) state president and former H D

Kumaraswamy

endorsed the candidature in the presence of Parameshwara in Bengaluru. Gowda later told reporters in Kolar that the party has decided to support UPA nominee for ideological reasons. He also predicted early polls in Karnataka and said his party is prepared to face it anytime.

The JD (S) has 40 MLAs and two MPs. However, the JD (S) has disqualified eight MLAs on the grounds of indulging in anti-party activities during elections to the Rajya Sabha last year.

This is not the first time the JD (S) has taken diverse sides switching between Congress and BJP depending on what suits the party in a given circumstance. In 2015, it had supported the Mayoral candidate of the Congress in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) while it had struck an alliance with the BJP to form 20:20 government in 2006.