BANGALORE: Almost the entire Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) component of the coalition Government will join L.K. Advani's Bharat Suraksha Yatra which will enter Karnataka on Wednesday. The "mantris" are thus becoming "yatriks" and the Government will be on a pilgrimage, as it were. The BJP, which has come to power in a southern State for the first time, has laid much store by the yatra. The only Minister who will not participate in it is D.H. Shankaramurthy who is away in Dubai for the inauguration of a study centre of the Karnataka State Open University. The university will conduct an M.Tech. course in software engineering and it will be online.

Mr. Shankaramurthy has been permitted by State BJP president D.V. Sadanananda Gowda to be away. All the office-bearers of the State unit and most of the party legislators will participate in the yatra that will pass through the party's strongholds. General secretary of the party H.N. Ananth Kumar is in charge of Mr. Advani's yatra. All the Lok Sabha constituencies through which Mr. Advani is passing through — Bijapur, Bagalkot, Dharwad North, Dharwad South and Bellary — are represented by BJP members. Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa will join the yatra on Wednesday. Mr. Advani will reach Dhulkhed village in Bijapur district on the State's border with Maharashtra in the afternoon tomorrow. The former Deputy Prime Minister will reach Bijapur to address the first of his public meetings in the State. After staying overnight at Bijapur, he will leave for Bagalkot the next morning. That day he will address public meetings at Bagalkot, Naragund, Navalgund and Hubli.

On Friday, Mr. Advani's programme in Hubli includes garlanding the statue of B.R. Ambedkar whose birth anniversary will be observed that day. He will address public meetings at Gadag, Koppal, Hospet and Bellary rounding off his yatra in the State.

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