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BS NAGARAJ
NEW DELHI, Oct 20: Never found wanting in demanding dissolution of any State Assembly in cases of crises in the ruling party, the BJP has calculatedly decided to refrain from doing so in Karnataka in the hope of reaping a windfall if Chief Minister JH Patel is forced out of office.
Sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party said that the party is watching the ongoing war of attrition between Patel and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda keenly and is eagerly looking at a situation where the chief minister is done in by the machinations of the rebels in the Janata Dal.
``The party will then split and that will mean that Deve Gowda cannot even set foot in north Karnataka (which is Lingayat territory),'' said a State BJP leader. The party believes that Lingayats are bound to go against Gowda and the JD if Patel who belongs to the community is thrown out.
In the party's calculation, since Patel himself does not have either the capacity or the inclination to convert the sympathy into votes by taking on Gowda andfloating his own party, the Lingayats will have nobody to turn to but itself.
It also feels that the other major contender in the State, the Congress, does not have any popular Lingayat leader to attract the community towards it.
On the other hand, the Karnataka BJP is headed by a Lingayat, BS Yediyurappa, who has a good chance of being projected by his party as the chief ministerial candidate in the run-up to next year's Assembly elections. The State BJP chief, along with Union Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar, has a big say in the party.
Yediyurappa who was here to meet Prime Minister AB Vajpayee to seek more relief assistance for the flood-ravaged areas of Karnataka made it clear that his party would not demand dissolution of the Assembly in the wake of the crisis in the JD.
``Let them fight and discredit themselves. For the last four years they have been doing nothing but fight among themselves,'' he told . ``We are ready to face the elections anytime and we areconfident of winning even if polls are held tomorrow,'' he said. According to him, things had reached a stage where a rapprochement between Gowda and Patel was unlikely. But for all the BJP's eagerness to cash in on the internecine war in the JD, it may have to wait until end-1999 when the State government ends its five-year term. With Patel showing no signs of capitulation and Gowda still unable to rustle up the numbers for toppling him, the chief minister may continue in office. Reports suggest that Gowda may settle for the head of State JD chief BL Shankar, his one-time confidant who has turned a strong ally of Patel. Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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