As Kumaraswamy pulls out of opposition meet, has Congress-JD(S) alliance collapsed?

Karnataka Chief Minister and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy will not participate in a meeting of opposition parties in Delhi on Tuesday, his office said. His cancellation comes even as the exit polls on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections near-unanimously predicted an sweep for the BJP in Karnataka over the Congress-JD(S) alliance.

Kumaraswamy's office did not offer any explanation for his decision to pull out of the opposition meeting. The meeting was meant to bring opposition parties on the same platform to press the Election Commission of India to expand the use of Voter-Verified Paper Trail Audit (VVPAT).

Speculation has been rife that the Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka would survive if it failed to notch a strong performance in the state's 28 Lok Sabha seats. This speculation has peaked since Sunday, when a majority of exit polls predicted that the BJP would sweep the elections and leave the Congress-JD(S) with a single digit score.

The alliance, and especially the Congress's Karnataka unit, seems to have already begun imploding. Congress leader Roshan Baig had on Monday lashed out at his own party's state leadership, even as he acknowledged that Kumaraswamy's hands were tied.

"KC Venugopal is a buffoon. I feel sorry for my leader Rahul Gandhi ji. Buffoons like Venugopal, the arrogant attitude of Siddaramaiah and the flop show of Gundu Rao...The result is this," he said to reporters.

"Portfolios were sold. How can I blame Kumaraswamy for it? He wasn't allowed to function. From day one Siddaramaiah said 'I'm going to be the Chief Minister'. You have gone to their doorstep to form the government," he added, saying former CM Siddaramaiah was the reason for the near-collapse.