Thursday, January 19 2006 13:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: A day after his son H D Kumaraswamy revolted and brought the coalition Government headed by Dharam Singh on the brink of collapse, Janata Dal (JD) Secular (S) supremo H D Deve Gowda has decided to convene a conference of party workers here on January 23.

The JDS led by Gowda was also expected to give a call later in the day to the legislators who had broken ranks withthe party and joined hands with Kumaraswamy to form a coalition government with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to attend the conference, party spokesman Y S V Dutta told sources.

He said the party senior leaders would meet in the evening and decide on the agenda for the conference and were expected to give a call to those who stood by Gowda's 'secular' stand and opposed BJP to attend the meet.

Dutta said Gowda would not speak to the press till January 30, until which time the Chief Minister Dharam Singh had sought time to prove his majority.

Gowda was 'saddened' by the developments in his party and JDS hoped that 46 MLAs who had left would retrace their path, he said, "We hope there will be self-realisation on them and they will come back to us", he said.