Is Karnataka heading for snap polls? With the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition coming under strain, senior Congress leaders here feel that mid-term polls are on the horizon in the state. | |
| JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda only lent credence to these talks today as he said the fate of the coalition would be announced on February 8 or the next day after his meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. |
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| Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh, who was also in Delhi today, however, sought to play it down saying he would meet the central party leadership and Gandhi could talk to Gowda if the former prime minister had any problem. The chief minister said he would also meet the JD(S) chief shortly. |
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| Gowda has convened a meeting of the party's district units on January 23 and of the national executive on February 8. |
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| "It (Congress) has decided to have a tie-up with the people who were expelled from my party. I have to take the my party into confidence before taking a decision (about coalition)," said Gowda. |
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| He, however, refuted all speculation about the possibility of any tie-up with the BJP claiming that he had met former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday to convey his New Year greetings. |
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| The latest crisis in the coalition developed following the Congress purported decision to have an alliance with Gowda's arch rival Siddaramaiah, who had parted ways with the JD(S) and floated his own political outfit. The JD(S) chief has said if the Congress were to have a tie-up with Siddaramaiah, that would be the end of the coalition. |
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| The Congress, on its part, is not much bothered about the possibility of the fall of the coalition government, as Gowda has been riding roughshod on it, be it his outbursts against former Chief Minister SM Krishna for his purported proximity with Infosys chief NR Narayamurthy or his one-upmanship in running the coalition, said senior Congress leaders here. |
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| After its good show in the recent local bodies election, the Congress is in high spirits. "A section of the dominant Lingayat community, which used to support the BJP, have switched over to the Congress," he said. |
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| The other dominant community Vokkaligas used to vote en masse for Gowda in the past but that is not the case any more. We are ready for any mid-term polls," said a senior Congress leader from Karnataka. |
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