BENGALURU: Janata Dal (Secular) state president C M Ibrahim has expressed his disappointment over the party’s alliance with the BJP and said that “nothing should be hidden in politics”.
Ibrahim told the media, “H D Kumaraswamy is like a younger brother to me and Deve Gowda is like a father figure and I respect them. I am hurt that Kumaraswamy met with Amit Shah. Any decision of a party is taken by the party president. Deve Gowda’s leadership is the oldest in India. BJP should have come to Deve Gowda. I am hurt that Deve Gowda had to go to BJP. Kumaraswamy said that he has not told some things to the president, nothing should be hidden in politics”.
The JD(S) had on September 22 joined hands with the BJP-led NDA to take on the Congress party in Karnataka in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. JD(S) leader and former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy made the announcement of the tie-up after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda in the national capital.
Ibrahim further said that if he wanted, he would have joined BJP a long time ago, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. “If you are making an alliance with the BJP, then who has accepted whom? If you have power, you don’t need to ask for anything. If we wanted to join the BJP, I would have joined long back when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the PM and offered me a ministry. We don’t have anything personal. We respect each other. I respect PM Modi and Amit Shah. I’m still the party president. I’m an elected president”, Ibrahim added.
Following the announcement of the new alliance, JD(S) state vice president Syed Shafiulla Saheb and other leaders including M Srikanth and U T Ayesha Farzana resigned from the party and reportedly there is discontent among several Muslim functionaries in the party. Kumaraswamy said, “We will not disrespect any Muslim leader from the JDS-BJP alliance. We have discussed about the BJP-JD(S) alliance with our state president CM Ibrahim”. (ANI)