New Delhi, July 16 :     Karnataka chief minister J.H. Patel?s eagerness to join the National Democratic Alliance has spawned fresh trouble for the BJP. While Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is keen to rope in Patel and his loyalists into the NDA, the Karnataka unit, dominated by Sangh stalwarts, is dead against a deal with him, sources said. Patel, who landed here today, urged Vajpayee to ?persuade? the Karnataka leaders to shed their reservations against him. Patel is backed by Samata party leader George Fernandes and Lok Shakti chief Ramakrishna Hegde. Karnataka BJP president B.S. Yeddurappa is believed to have firmly told Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Kushabhau Thakre that it would be ?counterproductive? to have any truck with Patel. He has been camping here since Patel started hobnobbing with NDA leaders.?His desire to join the NDA is a last-ditch effort to hold the Janata Dal together and prevent a four-way split,? Yeddurappa said. Yeddurappa?s ?stop-Patel? drive is backed by civil aviation minister Ananth Kumar. BJP sources claimed both Yeddurappa and Kumar saw themselves as prospective chief ministers and feared that Patel?s induction into the NDA may upset their plans. The BJP high command is, however, treading cautiously on the issue. Refusing to take a firm stand, Central leader in charge of Karnataka M. Venkaiah Naidu said: ?It is only a desire expressed by Patel to join the NDA. He was also careful to say he would place his views before his party?s national executive. But as far as the BJP is concerned, no request has been made by Patel nor any suggestion placed before us.? To pre-empt any covert deal between Patel and the BJP high command, Kumar today declared Yeddurappa the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP-Lok Shakti combine. ?There is no question of who the chief minister will be if we are in a position to form the government after elections. It will be Yeddurappa, who built the BJP in Karnataka. Thanks to him it is a mainstream party, and with the Lok Shakti, it is a party-in-waiting,? he said. Kumar also spelt out the Karnataka BJP?s priorities. ?Our first aim is to defeat the Congress and dislodge the Janata Dal government, and then take the BJP and Lok Shakti to power.? Naidu claimed the BJP had not taken the initiative to approach Vajpayee. Asked if Fernandes and Hegde had met Patel in Bangalore and urged him to join the NDA without Vajpayee?s consent, Naidu said: ?We will discuss these matters at the coordination committee meeting. But I do not attribute ill-motives to my friends in the NDA.? Asked if the BJP had closed its option vis-a-vis Patel, Naidu was ambiguous. ?There is no proposal before the NDA, I checked it with the Prime Minister. But if a proposal comes, all these things will be kept in mind ? the views of our state unit, Fernandes and Hegde. We also want the confusion in the Janata Dal to be clarified,? he said. BJP sources said key players involved in Karnataka developments had their own agenda. Vajpayee was keen to ensure the ?anti-Congress? vote did not get fragmented and felt that Patel, though less popular, still commanded some votes. Fernandes and Hegde wanted to cobble together a front of their own to increase their bargaining power with the BJP. Karnataka leaders felt that, along with the Lok Shakti, they were ?comfortably placed? to win the polls without ?suffering? the anti-incumbency disadvantage associated with Patel. The Karanataka BJP got a shot in the arm when veteran Congress leader, M. Rajasekhara Murthy, joined the saffron fold. Murthy, who was a minister in the Narasimha Rao Cabinet, cited two reasons for quitting: projection of Sonia Gandhi as candidate for Prime Minister and the party stand on Kargil. ?My interaction with party leaders has convinced me that a person who is thoroughly inexperienced and has no understanding of India?s domestic polity, who has hardly any in-depth knowledge of India?s defence strategy and its international concerns, has been imposed upon the party only to perpetuate the control of a family over the Congress,? he said. Party claims credit: The BJP declared that the Vajpayee government deserved as much ?credit? for the Kargil ?victory? as the jawans and the people. Keen to politicise the Kargil conflict and draw electoral mileage, BJP spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu said: ?The Kargil victory is that of the nation?the jawans, the people and the government headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee. To try to minimise this fact by saying it is a victory for the army and not the government is patently absurd.? Reacting to the Congress and CPI(M)?s claim that the credit for the Kargil win went to the army and not the Vajpayee government, Naidu sought to turn the tables on the Congress and argued that the party had said in 1971 that India?s victory against Pakistan was ?Indira?s victory? and not the army?s. ?In 1974 the Congress had given the credit for Pokhran-I to Indira Gandhi. The same Congress in 1999 says credit goes to the army and not the government! The same Congress in 1998 said credit for Pokhran-II goes to the scientists and not the government!? Countering the Congress-Left?s charge that the government was working under ?foreign pressure?, Naidu flatly denied it and alleged that it was the Congress regime which had ?succumbed to external pressure? by repeatedly deferring the conduct of nuclear tests and freezing the Agni-II tests. He claimed that the Vajpayee government had pursued an ?independent economic policy? which was ?forced into decline by Congress policies framed under foreign pressure?. Naidu asserted that while the Vajpayee government has ?acted, at each step and on each front, in the supreme national interest and pride?, the Congress and Left combine ?continue to hurt national interest and pride?.