Saturday, October 22 2005 18:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: In a no-holds barred attack on Infosys Chairman and IT czar N R Narayana Murthy, Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supremo H D Devegowda today (Oct 22, 2005) accused him of indulging in politics at the behest of his bete noire Maharashtra Governor S M Krishna, whom he accused of trying to topple the Congress-JDS ministry.

Firing fresh salvos against Murthy and Krishna, a fuming Gowda, whose party is sharing power with the Congress, charged that 'Krishna and his company' were using the resignation of Murthy as Chairman of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) as the last weapon to destabilise the Dharam Singh Government.

As Gowda was pouring scorn and contempt on Murthy at a press conference and sought to belittle his and Infosys' contribution to the IT sector, Chief Minister N Dharam Singh 'managed' to establish contact with Murthy, now in the United States (US), and spoke to him over phone to persuade him to reconsider his decision to quit as BIAL Chairman.

Disapproving of Singh's efforts to buy peace with Murthy, Gowda remarked angrily, "We or the coalition Government has not appointed Murthy as the BIAL Chief. It is for him to decide to continue or quit," in remarks that reflected sharp differences between the two coalition partners on the issue.

Unleashing a barrage of attacks against Murthy, Gowda sought to dismiss the celebrated technocrat's contribution to the IT sector as also of Infosys which he built as India's second biggest software exporter. "Nobody is indispensable. He (Murthy) is not a solitary individual who has contributed to the promotion of IT sector," said Gowda of Murthy who quit as BIAL head earlier this week, anguished over the former Prime Minister questioning his contribution in BIAL.

Gowda's fresh attacks come a day after Infosys hit back at him presenting 'data to the public' on lands allotted to it, their utilisation, investments made and the employment generated by the Bangalore-based company.

The Infosys rejoinder yesterday (Oct 22, 2005) was in response to Gowda's letter to the Chief Minister last week in which he had accused some IT firms of using the lands allotted to them for real estate purposes and asked him to be cautious while giving final approval for 845 acres sought by Infosys for its new software development centre and township.

The demand by Infosys for 845 acres of land at Sarjhapur road and 350 acres on the proposed International Airport road were beyond its requirements, Gowda said today.

Rebutting Infosys claims that it has created more jobs, Gowda said out of the three lakh jobs in the IT sector, Infosys accounted only for 22,000.

Hitting out at Krishna, Gowda accused him of committing 'constitutional impropriety' by indulging in politics and wanted President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take note of it.

Perturbed by the developments triggered by Murthy's resignation and its fallout, Singh said he had a telephonic talk with Infosys mentor and requested him to withdraw his resignation.

Singh said he would continue talks with Murthy upon his return to the city on November two and resolve the differences.