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Deve Gowda backtracks, J H Patel may get a breather

The week-long crisis in the ruling Janata Dal in Karnataka over the demand for replacing Chief Minister J H Patel appears to have blown over, with former prime minister H D Deve Gowda apprising the party's national leadership that the issues raised by dissident MLAs are "being sorted out".

Deve Gowda, who is now in Bangalore, got in touch with the Dal's secretary general Bapu Kaldate this afternoon and told him that there was no problem in the state unit and the issues are being settled. Deve Gowda's statement assumes significance coming as it does after his meeting with a group of senior ministers led by Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah this afternoon.

Kaldate, who also had a brief telephonic talk with Patel, said he was happy over the outcome.

Meanwhile, Patel, in a letter to party president Sharad Yadav, offered to hold the meeting of the Janata Dal legislature party after the assembly session commencing on Thursday. He had also asked Yadav to fix the date for the meeting some time next month when issues could be sorted out.

Patel described as ''erroneous'' reports appearing in a section of the media that he was defying the suggestion of the national leadership to hold the meeting of the JDLP.

Talking to the media earlier, Deve Gowda said the discussions in which the ministerial team headed by Siddaramaiah participated were "inconclusive". However, the deliberations were held in a cordial atmosphere, he added.

He said he would meet the dissident MLAs on October 28 to decide the future course of action.

Asked whether the dissident legislators would boycott the legislature session, scheduled to commence on October 29, he said, "Wait and watch."

Asked whether Patel had disobeyed the party high command's directive to postpone the legislature session following the memorandum submitted by the dissident legislators, he said, "I do not want to draw any inference." He, however, said that he was convinced by the explanation given by the ministers about the difficulty in postponing the session.

Deve Gowda said he had spoken to senior party leader S R Bommai who had initiated a trouble shooting mission.

An indication that the crisis was receding was given by Patel himself when he expressed satisfaction over the positive outcome of the talks held between a group of senior ministers led by Siddaramaiah and Deve Gowda, behind whom the dissidents have rallied.

According to party sources, the ministers had convinced Deve Gowda that it would not be legally and technically possible to either postpone the legislature session slated for October 29 or hold the JDLP meeting prior to it, as demanded by the dissidents in a memorandum submitted to Patel and the party leadership.

Siddaramaiah, who had another round of discussion with Deve Gowda today, told the media that the latter would get back to him after talking to legislators available in the city.

Asked whether he was happy over the outcome, Patel said, "I was happy, I am happy and I will be happy".

UNI

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