The Kerala unit of the Janata Dal Secular (JDS) on Tuesday decided to drop the name as a follow-up action over its opposition to the parent organisation becoming a part of the BJP-led NDA.

The Kerala state committee of the JDS — former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda’s party — that met on Tuesday decided to form a new party, state president Mathew T. Thomas told a news conference.

The Kerala unit of the JDS is part of the ruling Left Democratic Front and thus a member of the INDIA bloc. It also has a minister — K. Krishnankutty — in the state cabinet helmed by Pinarayi Vijayan.

“The Kerala unit has no connection with the JDS national unit. The relationship is merely limited to the name and the Kerala unit has for quite some time been functioning with a different political philosophy,” Thomas, a former minister, said.

“The state committee that met today (Tuesday) has decided that this anomaly needs to be rectified. So naturally, the Kerala unit will be dropping the name JDS. We have assigned some of our leaders to register a new party and then merge this Kerala unit into that,” he added.

The Kerala unit’s efforts to seek a separate identity to stay clear from its parent party have been in the works since September 2023 when Gowda and his sons decided to be part of the NDA. But it hastened after Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy joined the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Union minister for heavy industries.