How Kumaraswamy is keeping his flock together

It is obvious that a majority of the legislators from the Janata Dal-Secular are a disgruntled lot.

At least 20 MLAs from the party are contemplating quitting the JD-S and joining other parties to keep alive their political careers which they feel has been finished thanks to H D Deve Gowda issuing a whip that led to the downfall of Bharatiya Janata Party's B S Yeddyurappa government.

Stung by these developments and making a desperate bid to keep the party intact, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy has announced that he would float a new party.

Although Kumaraswamy sounded dead serious, sources within the JD-S maintain that this is a ploy to keep the MLAs with him.

"There is no way in which he would ditch his father and leave the party," a JD-S source told rediff.com.

The JD-S MLAs had expressed their displeasure in Monday's meeting that was convened to issue the whip to vote against the BJP. Several MLAs had even told Gowda to "push us off from Vidhan Soudha rather than do this to our political careers".

What the JD-S MLAs do not want at the moment is elections. They are hoping against hope that Gowda is able to pull of some magic and form a government with the Congress.

The MLAs fear a battering when Karnataka goes to polls.

The MLAs say that they are being called backstabbers and cheats in their respective constituencies and with such an atmosphere it would be next to impossible to contest the elections.

A majority of the MLAs have decided to either join the BJP or the Congress if elections are declared. This will not be the first time that MLAs from the JD-S are switching loyalties thanks to the family politics that Gowda has played -- Siddaramaiah, P G R Scindia, Ramesh Kumar, R V Deshpande, just to name a few.

All these persons have shifted loyalties recently after blaming Gowda for being more interested in his family than his party workers.