The Hindu : BJP, AIADMK to `work together' for polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004

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BJP, AIADMK to `work together' for polls

By Our Special Correspondent

The BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, presenting a bouquet to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo, Jayalalithaa, at her residence in Chennai on Wednesday.

CHENNAI, JAN. 28. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam today announced that they will "work together" for the Lok Sabha elections.

"We are going to have an alliance with the BJP for the elections," the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary, Jayalalithaa, said after meeting the BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, at her Poes Garden residence here. " ... We have also decided that there will be two teams on either side who will meet later and sort out the issues of number of constituencies and constituency identification," she said.

State Ministers, O. Panneerselvam, C. Ponnaiyan and D. Jayakumar, will represent the AIADMK while the BJP side will comprise L. Ganesan, C.P. Radhakrishnan and Sukumaran Nambiar.

Ms. Jayalalithaa told television channels that the main reason for the AIADMK reaching an understanding with the BJP was that her party was "committed to having an Indian as Prime Minister."

Describing the talks as cordial, she said that for now, there was no chance of any other party being part of the AIADMK front.

Mr. Naidu said that he had discussed the political situation and the coming Lok Sabha elections. "We will work together for the Lok Sabha elections and then move forward."

Asked if all the sitting BJP MPs would be re-nominated this time, he said it was for the party's Parliamentary Board to decide.

Asked if the AIADMK would form part of the National Democratic Alliance, he said that these details would be discussed later.

"We have decided to work together. The AIADMK chief has agreed that Atal Bihari Vajpayee should become Prime Minister again. With regard to the other details, the discussion is yet to take place. We will have clarity in the near future," he said.

On whether the AIADMK was invited to join the NDA, he said the issue was not discussed. On seat sharing, Mr. Nambiar said that the BJP would like to contest "more than seven seats" in Tamil Nadu.

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