Close on the heels of withdrawing candidates from the Lok Sabha byelections in support of the Janata Dal (Secular) to help put up a united fight against the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party was able to strike a seat-sharing pact with B.S. Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Paksha for the byelections to the three Legislative Council seats scheduled on August 22. The aim is to ensure that the anti-Congress votes are not split.
With this, it is going to be a straight fight between the Congress and the BJP in two seats and the Congress and the KJP in one seat as the JD(S) has already said it will not contest the Council bypolls to reciprocate the BJP’s gesture in the Lok Sabha polls.
According to the pre-poll arrangement, the BJP will contest the two seats of Chitradurga and Dharwad Local Authority Constituencies, while the KJP will contest from Mysore.Both parties withdrew their candidates on Thursday In Dharwad, the KJP withdrew its candidate — the former MLC Shivaraj Sajjanar — from the fray in support of the BJP candidate — Pradeep Shettar, the younger brother of former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar. The BJP reciprocated this gesture in Mysore by withdrawing its candidate Yashaswini Somashekhar.
Sources in the BJP termed this as an “informal one” and made it clear that both the parties would not take up any joint campaigning. “The understanding is only with respect to seat-sharing, with the main intention of putting up a united struggle against the Congress,” they said.
