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Deve Gowda ridicules move to expel him from JD(S)

Staff Correspondent

`Detractors are ignorant of the party constitution'

MYSORE: Ridiculing the move to expel him from the Janata Dal(S), party president and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda said his senior party colleagues who had threatened to act against him were ignorant of the party's constitution.

Participating in a meet-the-press programme organised by the Mysore Reporters' Guild here on Sunday, Mr. Gowda asked his party colleagues to study the party's constitution before issuing such statements.

He was reacting to the reported move by senior party leaders M.P. Veerendra Kumar, Surendra Mohan and P.G.R. Sindhia to expel him from the party for supporting the JD(S)- BJP coalition Government in Karnataka.

Mr. Gowda cautioned his senior party colleagues that he would not hesitate to use the constitutional powers vested in him as the national president of the party. "Our party has a constitution. As the president of the party, I have certain constitutional powers. I will use it at the right time," he said.

He wondered whether his detractors had read the constitution of the party. "Have they read it? Nowhere in the party constitution, had it been said that they should align themselves with the Congress. But, when there was a fractured verdict in the last elections, they had to forge an alliance with the Congress and these leaders did not raise their voice then," he said. On the impact of the outcome of the bypolls to the Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency in Mysore, Mr. Gowda said there would be no threat to the coalition Government. "The coalition will continue to function without any problem," he said.

Mr. Gowda spiked speculations that the JD(S) would join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). "Don't you see what is happening in the byelection here. The Janata Dal (U) has fielded its candidate. Then, where is the question of joining the NDA?"

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