By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) seemed headed for a split in Karnataka with the BJP releasing its third list of candidates for the assembly elections Wednesday, ignoring the request for seats by its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner.
The BJP has announced its candidates for 187 of the 224 assembly seats. The third list has 14 names. BJP sources indicated that the final list of 37 names may be issued in a day or two.
JD-U general secretary Shambhu Srivastva, who led four rounds of his party’s talks with the BJP in Bangalore, told IANS here Wednesday: “But they are offering us only eight seats, of which four are the ones we won last time. Four others are those we had never asked for and we are not interested in, where they consider they cannot win against Congress stalwarts.”
The JD-U leader said: “We had asked for 25 seats.”
“I have given a report to my party president (Sharad Yadav). Now it is for us to sit and decide our future course of action.”
He said during the talks, BJP leaders B.S Yedyurappa, general secretary Ananth Kumar and Karnataka BJP president D.V. Sadanand Gauda were present.
According to party sources, the JD-U is planning to put up enough candidates to queer the pitch for the BJP.