Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda hinted on Saturday that his party may have supported the BJP at the Centre if senior leader L.K. Advani, who built it from the grassroots, was its prime ministerial candidate these elections.
Speaking to reporters here, Mr Gowda said, “Mr Advani, who is the real pioneer of the BJP, has been sidelined. He had to seek Mr Narendra Modi’s assistance to file his nomination papers from Gandhinagar. This sort of thing could create problems for the BJP leadership.”
Claiming that Mr Modi would not become Prime Minister, he declared, “If the BJP gets 272 seats on its own, I will retire from active politics. Even the Congress will collapse in the country this time, making it inevitable for a coalition government to take over at the Centre.”
Mr Gowda’s angry remarks against the Gujarat chief minister appear to be in response to his statement on the “third front” that he has been trying to cobble together. Mr Modi was recently quoted saying that if the “third front” came to power, it would lead to “third grade development” of the country. The JD-S leader was here to campaign for party candidate Geetha Shivarajkumar.