The Hindu : BJP looking out for more allies `to isolate Congress'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 08, 2004

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National

BJP looking out for more allies `to isolate Congress'

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI JAN. 7. The Bharatiya Janata Party has claimed that it will win 300 Lok Sabha seats on its own and get a two-thirds majority with its allies and this is not preventing it from trying to pick up more allies — big and small — even as a question mark hangs over some of its current allies.

A party leader informally said that this was not because the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was lacking in confidence. The "strategy," he said, was "to pick up as many parties as possible" in order to "isolate the Congress completely."

A question mark hangs over the party's alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana. The BJP State unit is opposed to going along with the Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala's party. At a meeting there recently, the Minister of State for Home, I.D. Swamy, was forced to agree with the State leaders; so strong was the sentiment against the INLD.

In Maharashtra, the party general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, has virtually given up the idea of taking the Nationalist Congress Party on board the ongoing alliance between the BJP and the Shiv Sena. Apparently, too many problems in seat-sharing are being foreseen, not so much for the Lok Sabha as for the Assembly elections. For, if the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP tie-up takes place, the State Government will fall, and Assembly elections will have to held alongside the Lok Sabha polls. The Sena may not be willing to give up an adequate number of seats to the NCP. Neither the Sena supremo, Bal Thackeray, nor the NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, can afford to loosen their grip over Maharashtra, which is the only State where they are present in any strength, BJP leaders said.

The final picture will be known only after Mr. Pawar weighs his options and comes to a conclusion at his party's meeting scheduled for mid-January. The fact is that although Mr. Thackeray gave a green signal to the idea some days ago, he has spelt out some conditions. And the BJP leaders admit that at the level of the cadre the two outfits will not gel.

In Tamil Nadu, the 1999 NDA coalition led by the DMK has split, and so far no concrete steps have been taken by the BJP to bring on board the AIADMK.

Party leaders are aware that given the electoral arithmetic in the State, an alliance of the DMK, the MDMK, the PMK, the Congress and the Left will be formidable. But here the party is counting on the "Vajpayee factor" to pull it through. "Our support base in the State has increased considerably. ...not enough to win on our own, but nevertheless an impressive gain has been made," the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, said. And although not a word is being whispered about any moves to woo the AIADMK, it is becoming clearer that neither the BJP nor the AIADMK may have any other option but to go together.

The BJP is also in a dilemma in Uttar Pradesh, which gives 81 seats to the Lok Sabha. There is no definite word as yet about what the party's former leader, Kalyan Singh, may do — will he or won't he come back to the BJP? Party leaders are also keenly watching to see what happens among the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party. For the record, party leaders are saying that even if a Congress-BSP alliance comes through, "the Congress will stand to lose its upper caste vote, which will move to the BJP."

In Bihar, the BJP is relying on the "unified" Janata Dal (United) led by George Fernandes. It is also hoping that the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan will "come home" to the NDA.

Finally, some BJP leaders are also talking about "others" who may remain outside a pre-poll NDA alliance coming in after the elections. Again, the emphasis is on "isolation of the Congress."

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