Newindpress

Bangalore, Sep 19: With uncertainty hanging over the JD(S)-BJP coalition government due to confusion on power transfer, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda is said to be making a final effort to ensure that his son, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy continues in office for the rest of the term.

Sources close to Gowda told this website's newspaper the patriarch who had been resisting moves to the join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the last 20 months, is said to have changed his mind on the issue in the changing political scenario.

Sources said Gowda has evolved a formula where both the BJP and the JD(S) will have an win-win situation vis-a-vis the Opposition Congress. The offer, however, comes with a rider that his son continues in the CM's seat for the remaining 20 months.

The proposed talks between Gowda and senior BJP leaders -- Atal Behari Vajapayee, L K Advani and party's national president Rajnath Singh -- are said to revolve around the issue of JD(S) joining the NDA.

BJP, which is on the lookout for a suitable partner in the South after Chandra Babu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party and J Jayalalitha's AIADMK deserted it after the last general elections in 2004, is keen to rope in JD(S) as its ally in Karnataka and continue to have an alliance on the lines of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.

Though it is difficult to say whether the BJP would agree for such a proposal by Gowda, the latter is said to have received a positive response from a top BJP leader in New Delhi.

In case the BJP leadership agrees to Gowda's proposal, then status quo in the coalition government would continue and the JD(S) could join the NDA and could even enter into a pre-poll alliance including seat sharing. If not, the JD(S) may refrain from joining the NDA but transfer power to the BJP.