BANGALORE, January 23: Just as lord Vishnu had carried the earth on his back in his Koormavatara (incarnation of Vishnu) to save it, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda thinks that all the worry of the world are bowing his shoulders as he seems to have got into the "Koorma mindset", Former Union Minister R L Jalappa said today.Talking to The Indian Express on his return from Delhi, Jalappa, who joined the Congress and is most likely to seek re-election from the Chickballapur Lok Sabha constituency, stated that Gowda thinks that he was the greatest leader the country had ever seen and no one could surpass him. "There is a strain of a self-proclaimed leader in him. He thinks he is Janata Dal and the party is himself. And that's why all those who founded the party are quitting the party."To a question, Jalappa, who served as the Union Minister with two prime ministers, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, opined "There is no comparison between the two. They are poles apart. Gujral is a more matured, cultured and large-hearted person"."Deve Gowda is the personification of arrogance. The utter disregard to the colleagues in his ministry and the lack of basic courtesy to greet the MPs whenever they approached him (Gowda) did bring disrepute to Gowda", said Jalappa. Justifying his joining Congress, Jalappa maintained that he started his political career as a Congress worker and only returned to it."In fact there was no clear-cut difference in the ideologies of both the Congress and the Janata Dal but there was considerable delay in taking decisions by the United Front Government as its constituents had differences among themselves.Gowda files papers from Hassan Former prime minister and United Front steering committee chairman, H D Deve Gowda today filed his nomination papers for Hassan Lok Sabha constituency for the coming polls.Gowda filed four sets of nomination papers before the returning officer Rakesh Singh at the Deputy Commissioner's office, where hundreds of his supporters had gathered.Gowda's sons H D Revanna, state housing minister, and H D Kumaraswamy, a member of the dissolved Lok Sabha, accompanied him.In the 1991 elections, Gowda won the Hassan Lok Sabha seat as an SJP candidate with the support of former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde's Janata Dal, which he quit following a bitter feud with Hegde.
