National   

Venkaiah, Fernandes discuss alliance issues

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 6. The Bharatiya Janata Party president, Venkaiah Naidu, today discussed the state of the alliances in the ruling coalition at a breakfast meeting with the Defence Minister and convenor of the National Democratic Alliance, George Fernandes, at his residence. It was also an occasion to get Mr. Fernandes' approval for an early Lok Sabha poll in the event of the BJP arriving at that decision. Apparently, the possibility of new NDA partners also cropped up.

Later in the afternoon, at another meeting at Mr. Naidu's residence final touches were given to the political and economic resolutions to be adopted at the party's national executive committee meeting in Hyderabad on January 11 and 12. The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, the party general secretary in-charge of elections, Pramod Mahajan, the Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, were present.

Although officially there was no word about what else transpired at that meeting, reports suggest that the details of what had to be done in the event of a vote-on-account ahead of dissolution of the Lok Sabha was discussed, as well as what measures the Government could take through executive decisions ahead of dissolution.

Earlier, Mr. Naidu evaded a direct question on the state of the party's alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana. Without denying that there were some serious problems between the INLD chief and Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, and the BJP's state unit, Mr. Naidu said: ``so far we have not reviewed the alliance.''

Doubts about an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra going through were also expressed by BJP leaders, pointing out that neither the NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, would be satisfied with a small share in the State, nor the Shiv Sena would willingly agree to a cut in its share of seats, and consequently political influence in the State and the Centre.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National

News: Front Page | National | Tamil Nadu | Andhra Pradesh | Karnataka | Kerala | New Delhi | Others | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment |

Stories in this Section

• It will be Vajpayee versus a question mark: BJP chief
• Waghela may have to disband Shakti Dal
• Sangma against tie-up with Sonia-led Congress
• Pawar denies Mahajan's claim
• High expectations over Hurriyat-Advani meeting
• Venkaiah, Fernandes discuss alliance issues
• Chidambaram meets Sonia
• Sonia wants PM to improve farm credit
• Compromise worked out in Punjab Congress
• `Children orphaned by AIDS, a new challenge'
• Information on nuclear installations cannot be made public: Supreme Court
• Behind `Bhishma'
• Swamy meets Fernandes
• Study to design more disease-specific drugs
• New technique to help premature babies
• `No Indian insurgent camp in Bangladesh'
• `Indigenous manufacture of key naval equipment must'

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu