The Janata Dal-Secular with three MPs including former prime minister H D Deve Gowda has a lot of plans ahead of the trust vote. While the party is expected to formally announce its decision on which way it would go during the trust vote, it is becoming more and more clear that the three MPs would vote against the Congress on July 22.
Plan A by Deve Gowda was to seek nationalisation of mines in Karnataka. This demand was a bid to outplay his opponents in Bellary who control the mining lobby.
While the Congress did not give in to this demand as a large number of its leaders are into the mining business, Gowda planned another stratergy. Feelers sent out to him by the Bahujan Samaj Party, Telugu Rashtra Samiti, Telugu Desam Party and other regional parties have given Gowda the hope that he can replicate what happened in the year 1996.
Attempting to relive his dream of playing an active part in national politics once again, he first called on his MP from Kerala Veerendra Kumar and patched things up with him.
Veerendra Kumar had said since day one that he would vote along with the Left when Gowda was planning of going with the Congress. Now with this meeting, the JD-S is united finally and all three MPs would vote in similar fashion.
According to Deve Gowda, the next elections would see the emergence of a third front. Leaders such as Ajit Singh, Chandrababu Naidu, Chiranjeevi and some MPs from the TRS called on Gowda to chalk out a plan to ensure the re-emergence of a third front.
According to the former PM's thinking, the regional parties are expected to do better than the national parties. He feels that both the BJP and the Congress would get less than 100 seats each.
Mayawati of the BSP, who is in power in UP, will take advantage of her position in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections and would manage to get a large chunk of MPs.
The TDP is expected to do well in Andhra Pradesh and the yet to be floated party by Chiranjeevi is expected to put up a good showing.
Moreover by voting against the Congress, Gowda will also win the trust of the Left, which had helped him become prime minister. The TRS leaders too are expected to do well as they have stuck to their stand for a separate state.
The TRS has decided to vote against the Congress as it feels that the demands made by them had not been fulfilled.
Barring one MP from the TRS, all the rest are expected to go against the Congress.
Before arriving at such a conclusion, the Gowda camp has done a lot of thinking. When the demand pertaining to the mines did not go the Gowda way, he started thinking in terms of a third front at the national level.
He realises that by supporting the Congress at the Centre, there is nothing much to gain as the term of the government is anyway coming to an end.
Moreover, he did not see any scope of a JD(S)-Congress combine at the state level as these are still early days and any such move to pull down the BJP in Karnataka would only brand both parties as power hungry and worsen their prospects in the next elections.