'No Choice But Divorce, Abusive Relationship': What Deve Gowda Said About Kharge's 'Shaadi' Remark

Last Updated:March 18, 2026, 22:09 IST

Former PM HD Deve Gowda's rebuttal came after Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said his JD(S) counterpart had once shared "love" with his party but chose to "marry" PM Modi's BJP

Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda issued a strong response to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s light-hearted remarks on their past alliance.

Deve Gowda, adopting similar metaphors of romance used by Kharge, said his past with the Congress was like a “forced marriage" and an “abusive relationship", due to which he had “no choice" but to make an exit.

“My dear and longtime friend, Mallikarjun Kharge, made a light-hearted comment in Parliament today about me having been in ‘love’ with them (Congress) but “married" Modi Ji (BJP) eventually," Deve Gowda said in a formal letter and statement posted on social media.

His rebuttal came after Kharge reflected on his 54-year association with him in Parliament. The Congress president said while his JD(S) counterpart had once shared “love" with the Congress, he ultimately chose to “marry" Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.

Kharge said he was perplexed by the shift, stating: “I don’t know what happened." To this, Deve Gowda issued a detailed response and explained his party’s transition from a Congress alliance to a partnership with the BJP.

“He also said he did not know the reason as to why I did so… If I were to respond to my friend in the same language of marriage, I would like to say that I was in a ‘forced marriage’ with the Congress but had to ‘divorce’ them because it was an abusive relationship… I did not desert the Congress alliance," he said.

He reflected on his previous alliance with the Congress as being fraught with internal betrayals and said the separation was a necessity rather than a fickle change of heart. 

“It is they who walked away. They left me with no choice but to ‘divorce’ them and seek a more stable alliance…" he added.

To justify this, the JD(S) veteran revisited the tumultuous political events of 2018 and 2019. He said when the Congress offered the post of chief minister to his son, HD Kumaraswamy, in 2018, he had initially resisted the arrangement.

He said he explicitly vouched for Kharge himself to be made CM in the presence of other leaders, including Siddaramaiah. He, however, claimed that the Congress leadership, specifically Ghulam Nabi Azad, insisted on Kumaraswamy taking the helm.

Deve Gowda further said the “wedding" quickly soured as the Congress “dumped" the JD(S) following the 2019 elections. He pointed to the orchestrated defections of Congress MLAs to the BJP as the primary catalyst for the collapse of their partnership.

He also said the internal instability was manufactured by Congress members and, if the party had acted against those who “instigated defection", Kharge would now be in a far stronger position as Congress chief. He defended his decision to join Prime Minister Modi, as a pragmatic pursuit of a more reliable and respectful coalition.

News politics 'No Choice But Divorce, Abusive Relationship': What Deve Gowda Said About Kharge's 'Shaadi' Remark

Read More