Their ties under strain, the BJP and JD(U) made it up at the highest level here on Thursday. The JD(U) had been cut up with BJP for over a fortnight after the latter had weaned away a prominent leader from its ranks in Karnataka.Sources said NDA prime ministerial candidate L K Advani met JD(U) president Sharad Yadav in his Parliament House office on Thursday to address his concerns following defection of Karnataka JD(U) parliamentary board chairman Basvaraj Bommai to the BJP early this month. Son of former chief minister S R Bommai, Basvaraj is a member of the Legislative Council. An important Lingayat face, he wields considerable influence in the Hubli, Dharwad and Belgaum areas.Advani was assisted at the talks by his senior party colleagues Sushma Swaraj, Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Ananth Kumar. Yadav was accompanied by Prabhunath Singh and Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.Sources said both parties agreed that there would be no poaching from each other’s ranks. In special cases, where their flock may be headed for other parties, they may admit people, but only with mutual concurrence. The meeting took place after both Advani and Rajnath Singh called up Yadav offering to sort out the issue. Sources said Advani agreed at the meeting that the defection of Bommai Junior, engineered by Karnataka BJP leaders, was wrong. He recalled that several years ago, when there was a revolt in the Biju Janata Dal, he had refused to admit rebel leader Dilip Ray and his supporters into the BJP.The JD(U) is still in a dilemma over the fate of Basvaraj as an MLC. His father having been the founder president of the party, JD(U) is wary of sending a negative signal about him by filing a petition for his disqualification.The sources said Ananth Kumar suggested that JD(U) leaders work on former Karnataka deputy chief minister M P Prakash to get him on board. The JD(U) was trying to win him over at one stage, but BJP leaders spoilt the game by taking a public position that they would go it alone in the polls. Assuming that JD(U) would stand no chance without any alliance with the BJP, he developed cold feet. The two parties went to the last polls together and JD(U) bagged five of the 25 seats in its quota.The JD(U) has a long list of cases confirming predatory instincts of the BJP. Last year, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje secured the defection of former state JD(U) president Gopal Pacherwal to BJP. Pacherwal is an established Dalit leader and a one-term member of Lok Sabha and a two-term MLA.Earlier, Madhya Pradesh BJP had poached several important JD(U) leaders. One of them, Ganesh Singh, is now a BJP member of the Lok Sabha, while two others, Brijendra Tewari and Gajraj Singh, are MLAs.
