JD(S) predicts early polls

Claiming that the BJP government in Karnataka wo-uld collapse paving the way for early assembly elections, senior JD(S) leader and former minister Basavaraj Horatti today said his party would contest the polls on its own.

The party had begun preparations for facing the election by holding core committee meetings at divisional level. “We are trying to identify right candidates,” he told reporters here. “JD(S) will fight future Assembly elections all alone. Will not have truck with any party,” he said.

On the party abstaining during the voting in the byelection to the legislative council seat yesterday which Sadananda Gowda won, he said, the JD(S) wanted to uphold the ‘tradition’ of not contesting against the chief minister.

Besides not willing to break the tradition, JD(S) did not aspire to be blamed for cross-voting unlike Congress which expected BJP MLAs to support its candidate. Gowda won the byelection in which MLAs formed the electoral college with a comfortable margin of 54 votes.