NEW DELHI, March 7: In an effort to save the Janata Dal from desertions in Karnataka, the party leaders from the state have approached top Congress leaders to arrive at a long-term understanding to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party-Lok Shakti combine ascending to power in the state.The exercise has been initiated by Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel who has dared the Lok Shakti to show its strength in the Assembly which is scheduled to commence its session from March 9. He is understood to have asked his party colleagues to take up the issue with top Congress leaders on the need to take on the BJP in the long-term interests of both the parties.The BJP-Lok Shakti combine had bagged 16 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats. The JD got only three seats including that of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.A minister who was part of this exercise, said the efforts were on while senior state Congress leaders maintained that their party was capable of surviving in the next elections.Congress leader M MallikarjunaKharge said for his party, both the BJP and JD had been enemies right from the beginning. His party's demand for dissolution of the Assembly in the event of defections of JD legislators was still valid, he said.There was no question of supporting the Patel government especially after the Chief Minister's statement that there should be no hurdles for the BJP, the single largest party to form government at the centre.Patel, he alleged, was making such statements only to soften the BJP's moods in the event of their coming to power at the Centre.Sure of trust votePatel today said he was ``fully confident'' of winning the trust vote in the Assembly during the Budget session. Patel said he was confident that ``neither Ramakrishna Hegde of Lok Shakthi nor Atal Behari Vajpayee of BJP will resort to pulling down his government.''
