Congress will oppose if BJP is invited to form Govt: Dharam

Bangalore, Oct 28 (UNI) The Congress in Karnataka will oppose any move to invite BJP to form the next coalition government in the state, former Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly N Dharam Singh said today.

Talking to newspersons after holding a meeting of party leaders here, he said after the fall of the JD(S)-BJP government early this month, the BJP had written to Governor seeking immediate dismissal of Kumaraswamy government and order for fresh elections.

JD(S) President H D Deve Gowda had also urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for immediate elections to the State Assembly, Mr Singh said.

The Congress had appealed to the Karnataka Governor to take the party into confidence in the process of forming the next government, he said.

Strongly refuting charges that the Congress had tried to split the JD(S) using its leader M P Prakash, Mr Singh asserted that there was no need for the Congress to engineer such a split as the JD(S) itself was ''crumbling down'' due to its own making, he said.

He said a party delegation would meet the Governor today evening and convey its stand on the issue of forming an alternative government.

In a similar situation during 1979, the then President N Sanjeeva Reddy had not obliged the plea of the Congress to invite Babu Jagajivan Ram to form the government at the Centre after the fall of the Charan Singh government. ''The President then had turned down the Congress appeal to invite Jagjivan Ram on the plea that the political parties can not change their stance very often,'' he said.

UNI