Southern States
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Karnataka
Hegde, Gowda to meet next week?
By S. Rajendran
BANGALORE, DEC. 11. The much-talked-about meeting between the former Prime Minister, Mr. H. D. Deve Gowda, and the former Chief Minister, Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde, on the merger of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Janata Dal (United), is expected to take place next week in New Delhi. According to reports, the merger should take place before the byelections to the Kanakapura Lok Sabha seat in February.
The venue and date of the meeting have been kept a secret as the two leaders want to meet in private. More than anyone else, they perhaps want their respective party leaders to be kept out. The JD(U) is obviously in a tight situation as it has to come out of the National Democratic Alliance, which is the basic demand of the JD(S).
Mr. Sharad Yadav, JD(U) President and Union Minister, has categorically stated that his party would fight the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh as a member of the NDA.
Sources in the two parties told The Hindu here today that even if a formal merger could not be arrived at within the next two months, it was certain that the two parties would field a common candidate for the byelections. This would be an indication of things to come in terms of the political alignments likely to take place in the State prior to the next Assembly elections.
Mr. Hegde and Mr. Gowda, who have minced no words in expressing their animosity against each other in the last five years, have over the past fortnight showed an inclination to meet to sink their differences in the interest of the Janata Dal.
The survival of the Janata Dal largely depends on the merger of the two factions and the two leaders have been compelled to get together to enable the party to have a smooth sailing in State politics, if not at the national level.
Mr. Hegde has sought a one-to-one meeting with Mr. Gowda since he would like to know ``straight from the horse's mouth'' as to who had prompted his expulsion from the party in 1996. A new force of like-minded political leaders of the JD(U), the JD(S) and those who have remained independent after the erstwhile Janata Dal split has now emerged. The group of senior leaders has been working overtime in the past few days to ensure that Mr. Gowda and Mr. Hegde had a one-to-one meeting to sort out their differences at one go.
While initially it was skeptical about the merger of the two parties before the next Assembly elections in 2004, the developments over the past few days indicate that it could possibly take place before the Kanakapura byelections.
The JD(S) considers the Kanakapura Lok Sabha seat as a prestigious one since the Deve Gowda family has been trying for the seat for some time. For the Congress too, it is a prestige issue as its candidate, late M. V. Chandrashekar Murthy, won last time. For the BJP, it will be an uphill task with Mr. M. Srinivas, who had won the seat in the previous general elections, having joined the JD(S) with his followers.
Sources in the two camps said that the former Speaker, Mr. Ramesh Kumar, and the former minister, Mr. M. P. Prakash, were instrumental in ``arranging'' the meeting between Mr. Hegde and Mr. Gowda. In this endeavour, they have been assisted by the former ministers, Mr. M. C. Nanaiah, Mr. B. A. Mohideen, and Mr. K. Jayaprakash Hegde.
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