Udupi; Four leaders of the district unit of Janata Dal (Secular) — Barkur Satish Poojary, Louis Lobo, Kukkikatte Diwakar Salian and Lancy Fernandes — quit the party here on Friday.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Poojary, who was the JD(S) candidate for Udupi Assembly constituency in 2013 Assembly elections, said that nothing was being done to strengthen the party at the grassroots level in Udupi district.
Though he and other party leaders had met the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda a few months back and brought the matter to his notice, no action had been taken.
There was no point in bringing an “outsider” such as V. Dhananjaya Kumar to fight the Lok Sabha elections from Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency. The party had many dedicated workers, but unfortunately none of them were chosen to fight the Parliamentary elections from the constituency. Mr. Kumar’s credentials were nothing home to write about. Mr. Kumar also did not have the ability to fight from his own Dakshina Kannada parliamentary constituency, Mr. Poojary alleged.
During the 2013 Assembly elections, he (Mr. Poojary) had borne the entire cost of campaigning. Party leaders such as the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and MLA Madhu Bangarappa, who had earlier promised that the party would bear the costs, had later stopped answering his calls, Mr. Poojary said.
‘No courtesy’
Mr. Poojary said that though he was attacked during the election campaign in 2013, president of district unit of JD(S) Deviprasad Shetty had not even shown the minimal courtesy of visiting him in the hospital here.
The depressing state of affairs had left him and three other leaders with no other alternative but to leave the party. The JD(S) alliance with the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) was opportunistic, Mr. Poojary said.
To a question, Mr. Poojary, Mr. Salian and Mr. Fernandes, said they would remain neutral in the parliamentary elections, while Mr. Lobo said that he would support the Congress.
