Gowda wants secular parties to unite

BANGALORE, APRIL 10: Former prime minister Deve Gowda on Saturday said all secular forces should come together and support Congress to form a government at the Centre if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government fell.

Stating that he was not a major player in the present national politics, he said, “I am not even a player, let alone a key one. The whole world knows the position of my party (Janata Dal, with six MPs),” he told newsmen, discounting his participation in the race to become a Prime Minister again.Charging that BJP-led government had lost its credibility, Gowda scoffed at the BJP’s claim that it was either the Vajpayee Government or the mid-term elections, saying the people were not prepared for another immediate polls.He wondered why BJP leaders were knocking at the doors of political leaders in Haryana and Chennai, if they were so confident of survival.

Referring to the experts’ discussion on TV about the survival of the present Government, he ridiculed them for opining thatthere was no need for the President of the country to interfere at the moment. When he was the Prime Minister, he was directed by the President to prove his majority within a very short time.

“A day will come when I will expose the bias of these experts,” he said.Gowda declined to comment on Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde’s observation on Friday, hinting at joining hands with Chief Minister J H Patel and Samta Party of Defence Minister George Fernandes for the Assembly polls in Karnataka.

On the demand for a seperate state status to Hubli-Dharwad region, he said such dangerous trend should be nipped in the bud.