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Deve Gowda, Congress downplay meeting with Sonia

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda today asserted that his meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi was only a courtesy call.

Addressing the media in Bangalore, he said only the media was attaching political significance to it. Even the All India Congress Committee had dismissed the meeting as a courtesy call, he pointed out.

Refuting reports about his breaking away from the Janata Dal and floating his own farmer's party, he described it as "media creation" and said he would strive to strengthen the Janata Dal. He would tour the state and the country after the current Parliament session, he added.

Yesterday, the AICC underplayed the meeting between Deve Gowda and Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi by stating that it was a courtesy call and no political significance should be attached to it.

Replying to a volley of questions at a media conference in Bangalore on Friday, party general secretaries Tariq Anwar and Oscar Fernandes claimed that Gandhi had been meeting senior leaders of various political parties as the national political scenario was at a crucial stage. Hence she had met West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and Communist leaders Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Inderjit Gupta.

"I don't think there is any substance in it," they told a questioner who wanted to know whether alliance issue was discussed at the meeting.

Reiterating that the Congress would not create a situation of forcing another election, the two leaders said the party was, however, ready to face a midterm poll, if the Bharatiya Janata Party led-government at the Centre fell due to its own contradictions. The party would also not shy away from discharging its constitutional obligation of forming an alternative government, if the situation arose.

On the reported move by some ruling Janata Dal leaders to join the Congress, he said, "So many are trying to join" the party and the decision would be left to Pradesh Congress Committee. The party was strong and "I think we will go on our own in the state and form the government, whenever elections are held", he said in reply to a question.

UNI

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