COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Jalappa quits Janata Dal, to join Congress

The United Front suffered a jolt when Union Textiles Minister R L Jalappa decided to quit the Janata Dal and join the Congress.

Jalappa, whose relations with former prime minister H D Deve Gowda have been strained, has been toying with the idea of either joining the Jan Morcha floated by former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav or the Lok Shakti of former Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde.

The minister, according to Dal sources, was keen on joining hands with Hegde, provided the latter did not have a tie-up with the BJP. Since Hegde decided to join hands with the BJP, Jalappa was left with no option but to join the Congress.

Union Human Resource Development Minister S R Bommai and Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel tried their best to persuade Jalappa not to leave the JD, but their efforts apparently did not succeed.

At one point, Jalappa even announced that he was quitting active politics.

Jalappa, who belongs to the dominant Idiga (toddy-tapper) community, represented the Chickballapur constituency in the 11th Lok Sabha.

His joining the Congress is a homecoming as he left the party along with Devraj Urs in 1979, disillusioned with Indira Gandhi. Devraj Urs and he floated the Karnataka Kranti Ranga, which merged with the Janata Party the following year.

Jalappa joined the Janata Dal when it was floated in 1989. He was a minister in the Hegde, S R Bommai and Deve Gowda governments in Karnataka.

The differences between Jalappa and Deve Gowda started when the latter gave Cabinet status to Union Civil Aviation Minister Chand Mahal Ibrahim while he was a minister of state. Deve Gowda made Jalappa a full-fledged Cabinet minister in a subsequent reshuffle.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report