New Delhi: Janata Dal (Secular) chief and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda Thursday lauded efforts of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre in trying to protect waqf properties from being misused by the rich and powerful within the Muslim community.
He was speaking in the Rajya Sabha over the proposed amendment to The Waqf Act 1995 to address issues in regulation and management of waqf properties.
Gowda said that the Centre had taken “sufficient care” to protect properties donated by several people for the betterment of a community.
“Now, the present Prime Minister wants to put a seal not to allow this donor’s property which was given for a particular purpose to a community…that should not be swallowed by rich people or the people who are strong enough in the community to swallow this property. That is the background,” Gowda said in the Upper House.
His endorsement of the contentious bill is in line with that of who have been wading through rough waters to manage ally BJP’s expectations as well as those of their Muslim support bases in their respective states.
For JD(S), the decision was relatively easier since the party’s internal analysis indicated that Muslims had not backed it in two successive polls, forcing the alliance with BJP in 2024 and its support to legislations like the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024.
The decision to ally with the BJP was opposed from within JD(S) ranks. Several legislators and leaders spoke out against the alliance, largely fearing that it would alienate Muslims and other communities who would see JD(S) as an extension of BJP.
For the Gowda family, the alliance proved fruitful as Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy entered Modi’s Cabinet, though JD(S) won just two of the three Lok Sabha seats it contested in 2024. It also managed to get Gowda’s son-in-law, Dr C.N. Manjunath, to join the BJP and get elected on its ticket from Bengaluru Rural, defeating the Congress’s D.K. Suresh and, more importantly, not ceding its stronghold to its alliance partner.
JD(S) draws most of its strength from the Old Mysuru region and Muslims have oscillated between supporting the Gowda-led outfit and the Congress in different elections.
In 2023, the Congress vote share was up 5 percentage points to 42.88 percent while that of JD(S) was down from its average 18 percent to 13.29 percent, almost perfectly illustrating the shift of votes. The Congress registered wins in 135 seats including 25 of 46 seats in the Old Mysuru region. In comparison, JD(S) won just 15 seats in the region.
It had lost several seats by small margins which it believed was because Muslims consolidated behind the Congress. Its own former party president, JD(S) that Muslims will want to ally with the INDIA bloc and not with the BJP.
Kumaraswamy, in an interview to Deccan Herald in 2023, had lamented that the Muslim community did not stand with the party. But with the question of its own existence, JD(S) took the decision to formalise the alliance-the second time it had done so since 2006 but this time with the approval of Gowda. The Congress mocked JD(S), asking the latter to drop the word secular from its party name as it had aligned with a communal outfit.
‘No isms for me’: Deve Gowda
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Gowda said, “I was the chief minister. I have taken several decisions. In those days to protect minorities, I have taken several decisions. In 60 years, the so-called secularism, the fundamentalism, communism…I do not belong to any ism.”
Bengaluru-based political analyst Narendra Pani said Muslims supported JD(S) and not necessarily the Gowdas. “They never really had Muslim support. JD(S) got Muslim votes but the Gowda family never had this. The JD(S) would get this by aligning (with certain leaders or outfits)…they would get anti-Congress Muslim votes,” Pani told ThePrint.
JD(S) was also reluctant to join BJP’s protests against the 4 percent reservation in public contracts granted to Muslims by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government last month.
Gowda has claimed many times that it was under his leadership that Muslims were first included in the state’s OBC list. But several analysts and academics argue that it was Veerappa Moily who implemented the provision based on the findings and recommendations in the Justice Chinnappa Reddy Commission report.
There have been fissures between alliance partners in Karnataka over various issues but both Kumaraswamy, who is a former chief minister, and Gowda have bypassed the state unit and now deal only with the national leadership. JD(S) has kept a tight watch on its alliance partner as it does not want to give it a free hand in its strongholds.
Pani says JD(S) has a tendency to act more BJP than the BJP. “But when the time comes, it will reach out to the Muslim community through other leaders to secure its support.”