IANS

Bangalore, Jun 12: Liquor baron Vijay Mallya will have to wait at least two more days - till the end of Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) national executive meet - to know whether the party will support his bid to enter the Rajya Sabha for the second time as an Independent from Karnataka.

The BJP national executive meeting in Patna for two days from Saturday may take a decision on whether to support Mallya in the June 17 poll.

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, state BJP president K.S. Eshwarappa and party general secretary and Lok Sabha member from Bangalore South H.N. Ananth Kumar will be attending the Patna meet.

"A decision on whether to support Mallya or not may be taken at the Patna meet," Eshwarappa told reporters here.

The Patna executive meeting will be attended by BJP president Nitin Gadkari, party veteran L.K. Advani, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states like Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Raman Singh (Chhattishgarh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Yeddyurappa (Karnataka), senior leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Murli Manohar Joshi.

Mallya has some hard wok ahead to win over BJP as he had won against that party's candidate in the 2002 Rajya Sabha poll.

His entry as Independent then had prompted several BJP legislators to vote for him against the party's nominee D. K. Tharadevi, who was earlier a Congress Lok Sabha member.

Mallya is backed by Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) but needs BJP votes to win in poll in which only assembly members can cast ballots.

While a candidate needs 45 first preference votes to win, the JD-S has only 27 members in the 225-member assembly. It is also expecting an Independent member to vote for Mallya who will require 17 more ballots for victory.

The BJP can provide those votes as two of its nominees, former national president M. Venkaiah Naidu and state leader Ayanur Manjunath, are assured of victory as the party has 116 members and also the backing of five of the six Independents.

The BJP will be left with 26 surplus votes of its own and five of the Independents.

The Congress with 74 members is assured of one seat for which it has re-nominated party general secretary and former union minister Oscar Fernandes.

The contest is between Mallya and the second Congress nominee, T.V.Maruthi, a businessman.

Mallya is confident of winning. After filing his papers on June 7, he had told reporters: "I have friends in all parties."