N. Dharam Singh

BANGALORE: The Congress will not be fielding a second candidate for the fourth Rajya Sabha seat from the State, for which biennial elections are being held on March 28, the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh said here on Tuesday.

Mr. Singh, who is now Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, told presspersons that the choice of candidate for the one seat that the Congress is confident of winning has been left to party President Sonia Gandhi.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President M. Mallikarjun Kharge and he met Ms. Gandhi, apart from senior Congress leaders A.K. Antony, who is in charge of party affairs in Karnataka, Oscar Fernandes and Ahmed Patel on Monday in New Delhi, Mr. Singh said. They explained the prevailing situation to the High Command. Since the Congress does not have the required number of votes and it cannot bank on the independents or count on the support of "friendly parties," the party will not field a second candidate.

"We will be left with 19 votes after the first preferential votes go to our first candidate, and the number of votes required is 45. The circumstances have changed drastically now, and we don't have the support of our former ally, the Janata Dal (S), which had facilitated the election of Mr. B.K. Hariprasad," Mr. Singh pointed out.

The new Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, "is innocent, and inexperienced" and seems oblivious to the "ultimate agenda" of the new partner of the JD(S). The Bharatiya Janata Party's blueprint for being in the saddle in the State is vast, and Mr. Kumaraswamy will have a very difficult time trying to harmonise everything from the budget to the socio-economic policies between people's expectation and the BJP's agenda, Mr. Singh warned.

Mr. Kumaraswamy has to be alert to the games of the communal BJP, and he might not be able to handle the reactionary forces. The `Rashtriya Ekta Yatra' being undertaken by the former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, for instance, could lead to a sticky situation because of the ideological divide between the two parties, he said.

`Only announcements'

Taking a dig at the new Government, Mr. Singh said both the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa are announcing policies and programmes without realising that they need to be translated into action.

"We will see the fate of the coalition after the Budget is presented and what the Budget speaks of," Mr. Singh said. The coalition partners have said their Common Minimum Programme (CMP) will be announced on Thursday, but one wonders what kind of policy they will come up with, he said. "The Congress and the JD(S) took two months to draft the CMP, but this one looks like it is being drawn up by the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister," he said.

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