Seat-sharing talks fail; JD (U) to contest all LS, Assembly seats

BANGALORE, AUG 16: The Janata Dal (United) will contest all the 28 Lok Sabha and 224 Legislative Assembly seats in Karnataka. This follow...

BANGALORE, AUG 16: The Janata Dal (United) will contest all the 28 Lok Sabha and 224 Legislative Assembly seats in Karnataka. This followed failure of understanding regarding seat-sharing between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United).

Talking to mediapersons at the Bangalore airport, awaiting Lok Shakti leader Ramakrishna Hegde’s return from Delhi, Janata Dal (U) leader and member of the dissolved Assembly from Koppal, Basavaraja Rayareddi said the BJP’s opposition to allow the JD (U)’s entry into the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led to the failure of any further understanding between the two parties.

Terming the BJP’s stance as “back-stabbing”, Rayareddy said the Delhi developments were communicated to him by Ramakrishna Hegde on the telephone.

Rayareddy and other JD (U) leaders reportedly met at Home Minister P G R Sindhia’s residence to discuss the outcome of the BJP-JD (U) talks when the message reached them.

Rayareddy said the BJP was “overconfident” of “sweeping the polls” scheduled for September. Asked if the JD (U) would term the BJP as a “communal” party (now that the alliance was off), he said: “How can we call them that. They were our friends till yesterday. We can only say that they have backstabbed us”.

Asked if the developments would benefit the Congress, he said it was too premature to speculate on the issue. “But it will be disastrous for the BJP,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ramakrishna Hegde refused to meet mediapersons.