Hegde may go Right after all

NEW DELHI, Jan 6: With the announcement of a seat sharing arrangement between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Shakti a mere formality now...

NEW DELHI, Jan 6: With the announcement of a seat sharing arrangement between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Shakti a mere formality now, former Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde is in the process of persuading his friends in the state Janata Dal to go along with him.

Hegde, who arrived in the Capital this afternoon accompanied on the same flight from Bangalore by BJP chief L K Advani, held discussions with several JD leaders including Union Textiles Minister R L Jalappa and MPs P Kodandaramaiah and Basavaraja Rayareddy.

But all three of them expressed reservations against the Lok Shakti tying up with the BJP. While Jalappa is not averse to joining Hegde if his party has a seat sharing pact with the Congress, Rayareddy who has a good chance of retaining his Koppal Lok Sabha seat is firm on not leaving the Janata Dal.

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Kodandaramaiah, who was in a dilemma given his fears about securing a JD ticket to contest the election because of his strong opposition to former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, may also stay back in the Janata Dal. Prime Minister I K Gujral and other JD leaders have promised him that they would ensure a berth for him.

Hegde is expected to hold discussions with other State JD leaders including some ministers in the J H Patel government. At least five ministers, whose sympathies lie with Hegde, kept away from the Cabinet meeting convened by Patel yesterday.

The Lok Shakti leader was to meet Congress President Sitaram Kesri late tonight or tomorrow but little is expected to emerge from the meeting.

Hegde’s veering towards the BJP stems from the fact that the Karanataka unit of the Congress is not prepared to part with more than four of the 28 Lok Sabha seats that are at stake.

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Added to this is the perception that Kesri will not be able to persuade the State Congress party unit to be more generous towards the Lok Shakti in the new circumstances following Sonia Gandhi’s decision to campaign for the Congress.

It is not that there is across-the-board acceptance of the BJP option in the Lok Shakti but the realisation that the Congress will not part with sufficient seats in keeping with Hegde’s stature is evident even among those who are advocating a pact with that party.

The Lok Shakti hopes that it can get 12 seats, if not 16 which it has been demanding, in a seat-sharing arrangement with the BJP.

For the record, Hegde said that his party had still not made up its mind. He also said that he would be meeting Advani in the next couple of days.

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Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, now a part of Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Jan Morcha, met Hegde and urged him not to go along with the BJP.

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