By IANS
New Delhi : Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) president H.D. Deve Gowda Monday evening set out for talks with Congress leaders to form an alternate government in Karnataka as soon as B.S. Yeddyurappa of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resigned as chief minister.
Deve Gowda arrived here late in the evening. His personal staff at his residence here said he had no appointment to meet anybody Monday night though they added that he might meet a cross-section of MPs in parliament Tuesday.
At this stage, both Congress and JD-S leaders were reluctant to comment on the possibility of their second tie-up in Karanataka.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who dismissed the Karnataka developments as a farce of the “BJP school of drama”, added: “We cannot predict anything about future.”
But a JD-S source told IANS: “If they (the Congress) are keen to avert the dissolution of the assembly and mid-term polls, let them come up with some formula.”
On the first day of the winter session of parliament Nov 15, Deve Gowda had a long discussion with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi in the parliament lobby.
Informed sources said the former prime minister had then decided to dump the BJP and realign with the Congress.
Before assuring the BJP of his party’s support, Deve Gowda had offered the Congress party to lead a Congress-JD-S coalition government yet again, with the rider that it should be led by a Lingayat leader to counter the BJP.
He also named Rajya Sabha member M.V. Rajasekharan, son-in-law of former Congress leader S. Nijalingappa, as a possible candidate.