Karnataka Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) chief A.H. Vishwanath, here on Tuesday, quit his post, owning moral responsibility for the ruling party's poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections.
"I have submitted my resignation letter to our national President and party supremo H.D. Deve Gowda, owning moral responsibility for the party's dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections," Vishwanath told reporters in Kannada.
Though a party official told IANS, Gowda had not accepted the resignation and efforts were being made to persuade him to withdraw his letter, Vishwanath said he would not withdraw his resignation.
"The high command will meet soon and discuss the issue, senior leaders like H.D Revanna have advised Vishwanath to withdraw the resignation," party's spokesman Ramesh Babu said.
Blaming the Congress for the rout the alliance partners in the polls in which they could win only one seat each, Vishwanath said it was due to lack of cooperation and coordination between the two parties.
Of the 28 parliamentary seats in the state, the Congress and the JD-S contested 21 and 7 seats, respectively, as per the pre-poll seat-sharing arrangement.
"The Congress lost 20 seats and failed to retain 9 of the 10 seats, the JD-S lost 6 seats. Of the two seats we had won in 2014, we could retain only one (Hassan)," Vishwanath said.
The Congress could retain only Bangalore Rural seat, while the BJP won 25 of the 27 seats it contested and enabled Independent Sumalatha Ambareesh to wrest Mandya from the JD-S defeating Nikhil, son of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and grandson of Deve Gowda.
In Hassan, Prajwal Revanna, another grandson of Deve Gowda and son of state PWD Minister H.D. Revanna, defeated BJP's A. Manju and retained the seat. Deve Gowda had won the Hassan seat six times since 1991.
Lashing out at Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah for failing to galvanise his party leaders and workers in polls, Vishwanath said the former Chief Minister had not even drawn the common agenda to run the coalition government smoothly.
"Siddaramaiah had kept the state unit chiefs of both parties out of the coordination committee as its Chairman and did not guide his party's leaders and workers to work with our party leaders and cadres during campaign and on the polling days," alleged Vishwanath.
--IANS
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