Mysore: Jaffer Sharief does a U-turn, JD(S) may field G?T?Devegowda

Mysore, Mar 25: Senior congress leader C K Jaffer Sharief extended his Makkah stay thus refraining from contesting in Mysore on JD (S) ticket.

He had said that he would make decision on quitting Congress and joining JD (S) after his return from Saudi Arabia where he performed Umrah.

BJP disappointed

The sudden twist in this Jaffer affair ' has left the BJP squirming. It hoped that Mr. Sharief 's entry into the JD(S) would help not only consolidate the Vokkaliga vote against the Congress, but also divide the Muslim community by making them choose between the Congress and Mr Sharief.

This would have given the BJP an outside chance to upstage its opponents, but all of its efforts have come to a naught.

The Congress had an ace in the hole with which it stymied this possibility: it offered Mr Sharief a Rajya Sabha seat.

G?T?Devegowda to be JD(S) nominee for Mysore?

Now, the JD(S) is put into a fix in finding a suitable candidate for the Mysore-Kodagu Lok?Sabha constituency.

The party has launched an operation to zero in on a fitting contender among sitting MLAs G?T?Devegowda and?Sa Ra Mahesh and incumbent MLC?Sandesh Nagaraj.

Former chief minister H?D?Kumaraswamy, who is camping in the city to finalise the candidate, on Monday, addressed the party workers on the premises of Sa Ra?Bhavan. At one point, Kumaraswamy said: “I would have happily jumped into the fray from Mysore-Kodagu seat, had I not decided to contest from Chikkaballapur”.

Kumaraswamy exhorted the party workers to give him power to unanimously decide on fielding one among the three legislators from the district-Chamundeshwari MLA G?T?Devegowda, K?R?Nagar MLA?Sa Ra Mahesh and MLC?Sandesh Nagaraj.

Though the party workers made some noise favouring both Devegowda and Mahesh, the two legislators seemed reluctant.?When two more persons recommended the name of Devegowda, there was a round of applause from the party workers, especially from Sandesh Nagaraj and?Mahesh, who looked relieved.

Eventually,?Devegowda, who spoke his mind, appealed to the party workers to work hard, as the BJP fared poor in the rural pockets like Chamundeshwari,?Periyapatna and Hunsur in the previous Assembly elections.

The candidate, whoever it could be, will be a namesake, and the party workers should consider the party supremo H?D?Deve Gowda and H?D?Kumaraswamy as the real nominees.

Prior to the convention, Kumaraswamy was closeted with the party legislators and prominent leaders at a hotel in Nazarbad.

He also called on G?T?Devegowda couple at their residence in Vijayanagar. If not Gowda, Kumaraswamy wanted at least his wife and incumbent ZP?member Lalitha to take the plunge. But, nothing worked in his favour, forcing Kumaraswamy to coerce the party workers at the convention to exert pressure on the aforementioned legislators.

Before Mr Sharief 's name surfaced in the JD(S) camp, the name of Mr Mahesh had been tossed around as a “potential candidate”. With only a day left for filing papers, the party has finally zeroed in on two candidates picked earlier for the seat.

Still, the past week saw its share of drama and activism in the JD(S), which was buoyed by the possibility of senior Congress leader C K Jaffer Sharief 's entry into its fold to contest from Mysore.