Scandal-hit JD(S) battles disaster but insiders say party won’t die

The Janata Dal (Secular) is facing an existential crisis in the wake of India’s most notorious sex scandal in recent times, involving the grandson of its founder HD Deve Gowda.

Loyalists insist the crisis will pass as long as the beleaguered former Prime Minister continues to lead it. Party leaders, however, admit on the condition of anonymity that the calamity that has hit the JD(S) now is far worse than what happened after it bagged just 19 seats in Assembly polls that catapulted the Congress to power in Karnataka last year.

JD(S) insiders say more than the dilution of the party’s secular ideology, it is Deve Gowda’s blind love for his own family that has led to the present catastrophe.

Sex scandal

The sex scandal hit like a tsunami just days before the final round of Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka on May 7, when scores of videos emerged showing Deve Gowda’s grandson Prajwal Revanna engaged in sexual acts with scores of women, often coerced. 

Despite the disgraced Hassan MP claiming that his picture was morphed even as he flew off to Germany, the scandal – its sheer wickedness – stunned the 91-year-old Deve Gowda, who is unable to stomach the public shame.

While Prajwal is yet to return to India, the police have arrested his father HD Revanna, Deve Gowda’s elder son and also a politician, after a former housemaid accused him of raping her when his wife was not at home. Revanna has been sent to judicial custody for seven days.

Father and son

“Revanna and his son have knocked the party off its pivotal slot,” a close friend of Deve Gowda told The Federal. “Prajwal has not only brought disgrace to Deve Gowda but also to a party which is the only alternative to the Congress and BJP in Karnataka.”

A JD(S) functionary said: “Close identification with the grand patriarch’s descendants has been the primary problem of the party. It is not easy to stave off a collapse of the party.”

Many current party leaders and those who have quit it for various reasons feel that the dynastic politics practised by Gowda is the root cause for the present mess.

BJP and JD(S)

Deve Gowda and incumbent Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah formed the JD(S) in 1999 following a split in the Janata Dal and vowed to keep away from the ‘communal’ BJP.

Party leaders who spoke to The Federal said a party which vehemently denounced Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RSS and BJP for long years made a dramatic U-turn after the 2023 electoral rout and embraced the BJP.

“While doing so, the JD(S) took recourse to amnesia and forgot the criticism it levelled against the BJP all these years,” said one party source. “That crisis has now become unmanageable after Prajwal’s behaviour.”

Modi’s reaction

No wonder, the BJP, now repenting for having allied with the JD(S), is making every effort to distance itself from the regional party. According to informed sources, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has asked the BJP to maintain a “safe distance” from the JD(S) fearing more embarrassment,

On Monday, in his first ever comment on the sexual assault allegations against Prajwal Revanna, Modi – who had campaigned for him in the Lok Sabha elections -- said there should be “zero tolerance” of such people.

JD(S) insiders confess that the damage caused by the scandal has left deep scars on its reputation and it will take a long time to heal the mental agony caused to Deve Gowda.

Family 'puppet'

One insider complained that Deve Gowda had become a virtual puppet in the hands of his two sons, HD Revanna and HD Kumaraswamy.

Much against Deve Gowda’s wishes, Kumaraswamy formed a coalition government with the BJP in 2006, allowing the latter to taste power in the country’s south for the first time.

At that time, Deve Gowda spoke as if he was disowning Kumaraswamy but the father and son eventually made up and the party’s dilution of its secular ideology was forgotten.

Embracing BJP

And, ahead of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, the JD(S), now with Deve Gowda’s blessings, embraced the BJP, angering many within the party. But with the party firmly controlled by the Gowda family, no one could mount a challenge.

Deve Gowda’s love for the family is such that he earlier sacrificed his Hassan parliamentary constituency to Prajwal Revanna and contested from Tumkur, where he lost in 2019. Thanks to his influence, Prajwal won from Hassan, from where he contested again this time.

While Prajwal is an outgoing MP, his brother Suraj Revanna is a member of the legislative council. Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Kumaraswamy had contested from Mandya Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 and lost. He also headed the JD(S) youth wing for a while.

Moral corruption

Another party leader pointed out how one of Deve Gowda’s daughters-in-law, Bhavani Revanna, tried to browbeat a motorist after he brushed against her SUV. “But Deve Gowda simply attributed her rudeness to her post-surgery stress," said the leader.

The leader added: “Financial corruption is often forgiven but the moral corruption we have seen will remain a part of Karnataka’s political history forever. It is not possible to erase the indelible marks, the scam made on the psyche of the society.”

The police charges against HD Revanna and Prajwal are said to have deeply troubled Deve Gowda. “He is shattered with his name being dragged in this scandal,” said one source.

Battling crisis

This has forced Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy to get a gag order on 82 media houses from publishing any news that would depict the two men falsely linked to Prajwal's videos without substantive evidence.

Kumaraswamy is said to be handling the crisis carefully. To begin with, he has suspended Prajwal Revanna and also distanced himself from his brother HD Revanna’s family.

“Everything now hinges on the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls. All depends upon the seats the JD(S) contested from Hassan, Mandya, Kolar and Bengaluru Rural (where Deve Gowda’s son-in-law CN Manjunath contested on BJP symbol), said a senior JD(S) leader.

Rebuilding JD(S)

At the same time, Kumaraswamy is assuring every member and leader of the party that the JD(S) will recover from the disaster and that he personally will re-build the party from the grassroots.

“The JD (S) will rise like phoenix under the guidance of Deve Gowda who will not allow it to get crushed by any force on the earth,” he asserted.

Another party leader told The Federal that the JD(S) was unlikely to split due to differences between brothers Revanna and Kumaraswamy. “That situation will not arise till Deve Gowda has complete control over the party.”