Former chief minister and JD(U) leader JH Patel told reporters after a meeting of the newly-elected party MLAs that his party would have no truck with the state BJP henceforth.

Accusing the state BJP of having been non-cooperative in the run up to the polls, he said "the alliance is off at the state-level".

However, the JD(U), which bagged three Lok Sabha seats in the state, would continue to support the Vajpayee government, he said.

Earlier, addressing the meeting, Patel attacked the state BJP, accusing it of "stabbing" the JD(U). "Otherwise, we could have formed the government," he said. Patel said in about 35 Assembly constituencies, JD(U) lost narrowly by 500-600 votes or less than 1,000 votes, clearly indicating that the presence of both BJP and JD(U) candidates in these constituencies had cost the combine dearly.

He refused to comment on statement of BJP state chief B Syed Iyurappa that BJP had to bear the anti-incumbency factor due to the Patel administration. Patel said the alliance with the BJP never really came about. "We did not get respect and prestige out of this (alliance)," he said.

Patel announced that the newly-elected JD(U) MLAs would sit as a separate block in the assembly and would have nothing to do with the BJP. Patel said himself, Rama Krishna Hegde and state unit president C Byre Gowda had been authorised by the party to choose the legislature party leader, deputy leader and chief whip. All matters would be discussed after Hegde returned from New Delhi.