Karnataka CM-designate and JDS legislature party leader HD Kumaraswamy will meet Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in Delhi today – also the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

According to sources, HDK will meet the AICC president and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to thank them and invite them for his swearing-in ceremony in Bengaluru.

The Congress-JDS alliance on Saturday succeeded in keeping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) away from power in the state. BJP’s BS Yeddyurappa resigned from the CM’s post minutes before the floor test in the Assembly. Both JDS and Congress have claimed that despite all sorts of pressure – money, muscle and threats to use state agencies against the newly-elected legislators – the BJP failed to break apart a single MLA from their flock. While the JDS-Congress alliance has 118 members on its side, the BJP had only 104.

HDK will reach New Delhi by noon and first meet Rahul. The meeting is expected to be less than one hour. Around 4.30 in the evening, Kumaraswamy will meet Sonia Gandhi. The meetings are also being seen as a message to the National Democratic Alliance, led by the BJP, that the larger opposition, ahead of the 2019 general election, has started taking shape from Karnataka.

It is important to note that Rahul Gandhi, in order to keep the BJP out of power, had chalked out the plan B to anoint Kumaraswamy as CM on May 14 itself. “Rahul Gandhi had convened a high-level meeting in Delhi on May 14. And it was decided that if the Congress fails to clinch the majority – it will support Kumaraswamy to keep the BJP away from power,” AICC general secretary KC Venugopal had told Newslaundry.