Bangalore, October 27
Faced with a split in the party, the Gowda clan today decided to realign with the BJP and jointly met Governor Rameshwar Thakur to stake claim to form a government in Karnataka under the leadership of the saffron party.

The move, if accepted, will give the BJP its first government in South India.

The sudden move was ostensibly made to keep the Congress at bay and also left senior JD (S) leader and former home minister M.P.Prakash, who had gone to Delhi to stitch an alliance with the Congress in the lurch.

The Governor is in the process of consulting legal experts even though there do not seem to be any impediments in the formation of the government, with the State assembly still in suspended animation. However, he will have to depose on a fax message sent by M.P.Prakash, who has requested the Governor not to honour the letter of support given by his party. Prakash has claimed that the letter does not have validity, as no notice had been issued for a meeting of the legislature party of the JD (S) with many of the MLAs being in Delhi or in their villages.

Former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, son of party supremo H.D.Deve Gowda, seems to have led his colleague M.P.Prakash up the garden path and used a cloak and dagger tactic to get the better of him. After announcing late last night that he would wait till October 30 to give a chance to Prakash to hold talks with the Congress and even announcing the party would support Prakash as Chief Minister of the new coalition, he opened up lines of the communication with the BJP.

The result was the air dashing of BJP troubleshooter Venkaiah Naidu to Bangalore this morning. Shortly afterwards, JD(S) spokesperson and H.D.Deve Gowda point man Y.S.V.Datta announced the JD (S) had decided to extend support to the BJP to form a government, led by B.S.Yediyurappa. His reason for the sudden move? “The Congress is trying to split the party and destroy it.” He said in the light of such developments, the JD (S) legislature party took the go-ahead of the party high command, including Deve Gowda, and gave a letter of support to the BJP.

Immediately afterwards, there were a slew of developments, with Kumaraswamy handing over the letter of support to Yediyurappa. Senior JD (S) leaders also met their counterparts for a closed-door meeting at the Kumara Krupa guesthouse. The BJP told the JD (S) it would present the JD(S) proposal to its high command, which accepted the move, following which a joint delegation of the JD(S) and the BJP trooped into Raj Bhawan with a letter requesting Governor Rameshwar Thakur to invite Yediyurappa to form a government in the state. The delegation asked the Governor to allow the coalition to stand up to a floor test in the assembly. The Governor reportedly told the delegation that he would get back to them and was in the process of consulting legal experts on the issue.

According to sources, simultaneously H.D.Deve Gowda was also talking to BJP president Rajnath Singh to cement the alliance again and speed up the process of formation of a JD (S) - BJP government in the wake of efforts being made by senior JD(S) leader and former home minister M.P.Prakash to stitch an alliance with the Congress. Kumaraswamy did a complete u-turn today morning, saying “we gave sufficient time to the Congress but they did not respond properly”. He also claimed that all 59 legislators of the party were united behind the move to extend support to the BJP and there was no question of any split in the party. When pressed about Prakash’s assertion that the supposed meeting of the JD(S) legislature party was illegal, he indicated that he would bring Prakash around to the view taken by the party.

Meanwhile, pradesh Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for the imposition of President’s rule in the state. In a statement here, he called the new alliance “unholy” and said it proved that the JD (S)-BJP “lust for power” despite past differences which has resulted in the severing of ties less than one month ago after the JD(S) refused to honour its pledge to give the Chief Minister’s chair to B.S.Yediyurappa as per the agreement between 
the two parties.