BENGALURU: The father-son duo of the JD(S) first family, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and former chief minister

, appear at odds with each other over the issue of extending support to the BJP.

In recent comments, Kumaraswamy had indicated willingness to support the BJP should the BS Yediyurappa-led government fall short of winning the required number of seats in the bypolls to give it a majority in a full-strength house. But Gowda on Tuesday ruled out any alliance with the BJP.

“We formed an alliance with both BJP and Congress under different circumstances in the past and burnt our fingers,” Gowda told reporters on Tuesday. “We will not commit the same mistake again. We would rather sit in the opposition. There is no question of joining hands with either of them.”

He said the JD(S) was planning to field candidates in all 15 assembly seats going to polls and his party would go it alone in local body polls too. “Some media reports suggest we have a soft corner for the BJP, but we neither have a soft corner for BJP nor Congress,” he said.

In response to Congress leader

’s prophesy that the Yediyurappa-led BJP government will be reduced to a minority after the December 5 byelections, Kumaraswamy, the JD(S) Legislature Party leader, said he would “never allow the BJP government to fall”.

Then, in an oblique reference to Siddaramaiah, Kumaraswamy appeared to stick to his guns when he said in a tweet, “Some leaders, in their selfish and greedy pursuit to become chief minister, are ready to topple the present government. They are unmindful of wasting people’s money. They should remember that most of the defectors [who are responsible for the fall of JD(S)-Congress government] were from their party.”

That was in response to leader of the opposition Siddaramaiah’s tweet, which said: “Kumaraswamy has said he will not allow the BJP government to collapse. What else can we expect from the JD(S)? He is saying this out of fear that more JD(S) MLAs may join BJP. This is an expected political development.”