Bengaluru, Jun 14 (DHNS): JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda admitted on Saturday that he was 24/7 politician, but he said he had decided to keep himself off electoral politics in the future.

Participating in an interaction with the media, he said he had been in politics for 54 years and served in various positions through his long career. “I have decided to not contest elections in the future. I am 83 years old now. But it does not mean I have lost interest in politics. I will continue to work for the party (JD-S),” he said.

Gowda, who is a Member of Parliament from Hassan, said he had offered to resign as MP as announced during the 2014 parliamentary polls. “I had said I would resign if the BJP led by Narendra Modi wins more than 276 seats. I offered to resign as announced. But Modi stopped me saying such statements were common in politics, and that the Lok Sabha needs experienced MPs like me,” he said.

He said except Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, none of the leaders who left the then Janata Dal criticised him. It could be B L Shankar, V S Ugrappa, C M Ibrahim, R V Deshpande, V Srinivas Prasad and H C Mahadevappa, they did not criticise him unnecessarily, he added.

Siddaramaiah is under the impression that because of Gowda’s conspiracy, he missed an opportunity to become the chief minister in 2006. The late J H Patel was the deputy chief minister when Gowda (who was the then chief minister) went to Delhi to become the prime minister. The Janata Dal then had a total 36 Lingayat legislators. The party would have lost power if it had made Siddaramaiah the chief minister, Gowda said.

He expressed doubt over the Janata Parivar coming together in the future and sought to know where the Parivar was, in reply to a question on the efforts being made to unite the Janata Parivar.