BJP's offer to JDS: Mandya & Hassan with bonus RS seat
seat sharing between the BJP and the Janata Dal (S) in Karnataka are complete and an announcement is likely to be made later this month.
Sources in BJP told ET that the party is willing to give two Lok Sabha seats — Hassan and Mandya — to the JDS and may promise one Rajya Sabha seat as a bonus to the ally. In 2019, the JDS had contested in alliance with the Congress.
Out of Karnataka's 28 seats, BJP had won 25, while Congress and JDS won a seat each. The remaining seat, Mandya, went to independent Sumalatha Ambareesh, who beat JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda's grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy with BJP's support .
After the 2023 assembly elections, where Congress won a majority to form the government in the state, the BJP decided to ally with the JDS for the Lok Sabha.
Several BJP leaders, including CT Ravi recently, had met JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy after the assembly elections.
Last month, Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy and other so-called JDS first family members met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
The JDS got 13% votes and won 19 seats in last year's assembly elections.
During discussions, Kumaraswamy had initially demanded four to five seats, but later agreed for the two plus one formula, sources said. Kumaraswamy has maintained that the number of seats didn't matter for his party but an alliance to defeat the Congress was crucial for the JDS .
