Jaipal Reddy joins Cong
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Aug 18 — The Janata Dal (Secular), the faction led by the former Prime Minister, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda today received a major jolt today as the former Information and Broadcasting Minister and senior leader of the party, Mr Jaipal Reddy announced his decision to join the Congress.

As he made his decision public, Mr Jaipal Reddy said the Congress was the only "single largest secular organisation that could take on the BJP".

Mr Reddy, who has sent his resignation letter to the Janata Dal (Secular) president, Mr Deve Gowda, said at a press conference here, that "all other secular forces will have to join hands with the Congress either before or after the elections.... Support to the Congress, either from inside or outside, is therefore a historical necessity at the present moment."

The decision of Mr Jaipal Reddy, who vehemently opposed the former Janata Dal president Mr Sharad Yadav on his view of the party to join hands with the Samata Party and the Lok Shakti and merge with the National Democratic Alliance, comes at a time when the Janata Dal (Secular) leaders have been professing a stand of maintaining an equidistant stand from both the BJP and the Congress.

Whether or not the joining of Mr Reddy would boost the image of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh would not be immediately evident, but it would definitely have an effect on the morale of the Janata Dal (Secular) workers. This specially as Mr Reddy has been one of the most visible faces in the Janata Dal and had been its spokesman for a long time.

The defection of Mr Reddy, will be a major loss for Janata Dal (Secular) as being an able parliamentarian, he has been arguably the most articulate voice within the Janata Dal and the now defunct United Front.

Replying to questions on viability of a the ‘third front’, he said, "I don’t think in the near future there can be a viable third force," and added that the Congress with other supporting parties will fill the void.

Mr Reddy’s decision to switch parties is yet another instance of politicians succumbing to the lure of electoral politics. If he had stuck to the JD(S) he would have been nowhere, for the party virtually doesn’t exist in Andhra Pradesh. Not a man known to possess a mass base to see him through at the hustings, he had no choice but to join the bandwagon of a major party.

Even his earlier elections to Parliament had been made possible courtesy the Telugu Desam Party. A virulent critic of the BJP, joining the TDP or taking its support was not an option for him as the TDP has been supporting Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

To a question about the TDP, Mr Reddy said he did not consider it as communal but a party, "that has made a serious compromise with a communal party". Mr Reddy returned to the Congress fold after 24 years, when he had left it to join the Janata Party.

Asked if he would agree to contest the election if he was pitted against a candidate from a secular party, he said, "It is a tragedy.....But those who voted against the Vajpayee government should have got together to form an alternative government."