Bharti on way to Hubli, to surrender today

With crowds of hundreds of people thronging every railway station on the way to Hubli, the stage was set for former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti's triumphant arrest at the hands of the Karnataka police on Wednesday when she arrives in Hubli from Miraj.

One of her Hubli lawyers, Arun Joshi, told Business Standard on the telephone that Bharti was likely to arrive in the town at around 12 noon and would court arrest almost immediately.

He said the administration was apparently thinking of lodging her in a university guest house on the fringes of the city as a room had been spruced up for her there.

Joshi said the non-bailable warrant in connection with a 10-year-old criminal case would neither be contested by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), nor bail sought by the party. "We expect her to be in jail for at least 10 days" he said.

The BJP would also launch an agitation demanding withdrawal of "false cases" against Bharti with Hubli being the "nodal point", he said. "If the situation goes out of control, the government has to take responsibility," he said.

Joshi said it was possible that Bharti, upon being released could launch a "tiranga yatra" planned from Hubli in Karnataka to Jallianwalla Bagh in Punjab, although the party was to clear the proposal.

Anantha Kumar, BJP Karnataka unit chief, alleged the state government decided to reopen the cases against her at the instance of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, as a "political vendetta" against the National Democratic Alliance against their campaign demanding removal of "tainted ministers" from the United Progressive Alliance government.

The situation in the twin towns of Hubli-Dharwad was tense, Joshi said. Yesterday communal tension had flared up in nearby Belgaum and one person had been stabbed in an incident unrelated to the Bharti episode.

And with the record number of BJP legislators being returned from north Karnataka in the Assembly election, Joshi said nothing could be ruled out.

But Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh, in a bid to prevent Bharti and the BJP from capitalising on the incident, said the police had orders not to arrest her if the surrender was "trouble free".