It had been a challenge for Congress and the Janata Dal Secular to keep their flock intact.
The Congress and the Janata Dal Secular that came together to form an alliance after the election results were declared are "not natural allies" but driven by the common objective to keep BS Yeddyurappa's BJP out of power in Karnataka, a senior state Congress leader told NDTV.
It had been a challenge for the two allies to keep their flock intact in face of intense pressure from the BJP, which the Congress says, stopped at nothing and even kept at least two Congress lawmakers, Anand Singh and Pratap Gowda Patil, in illegal confinement. But the storm has blown over and HD Kumaraswamy will take over as chief minister on Wednesday.
Now is it time for the real test of unity?
"Yes it is a test because both of us are not natural allies," Dinesh Gundu Rao, the working president of the Karnataka Congress told NDTV, pointing that the two parties "have our differences".
But at the same time, he said, they also had a common ideological stand: "Not to allow a communal force".
"Hopefully, all of us will be able to work together well and do development for Karnataka and take on this politics that the BJP is imposing on the people of this country," he said about the alliance that some leaders in the two parties hope, would continue for the next five years and lay the foundation for another pact for next year's general elections too.
Amit Shah, the president of the BJP, whose performance in the assembly elections brought the two traditional rivals together, however, has
predicted it would not last for too long. It is an unholy alliance.
He prophesied that "such a government will not last long in the state" and asked people to "just wait for one year".
JDS leader Danish Ali, however, does not see the alliance running into trouble and feels that it would have a positive impact on opposition unity far beyond Karnataka. "We have all decided to keep our small differences... misunderstandings aside and work together for the larger good," he said.