The Hindu : BJP parliamentary board reviews alliances

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

National

National

BJP parliamentary board reviews alliances

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, FEB. 16. The Bharatiya Janata Party's Parliamentary Board met here this morning to take a hard look at the party's alliances and work out its timetable on the assumption that the Lok Sabha elections would start around April 20.

At a two-hour meeting at the Prime Minister's residence — with the party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, presiding — the Board concluded that the party's alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana had ended and therefore gave its approval to the State unit's demand to contest all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana.

The general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, told the media later that the BJP would have no truck with the Asom Gana Parishad in Assam. In Jharkhand too it would contest all the 14 seats on its own, as also in Himachal Pradesh where the understanding with Sukh Ram's Himachal Vikas Party had ended.

In Tamil Nadu, where the BJP is having difficulty over seat-sharing with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Mr. Mahajan is hopeful of reaching a decision in two days. Altogether, the BJP would contest "roughly 350 Lok Sabha seats," he said.

Mr. Mahajan saw no difficulty finalising seat-sharing with old partners such as the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh, the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, the Akali Dal in Punjab and the Janata Dal (United), comprising the old Samata Party and the JD (U), in Bihar. In these States, seat-sharing formulas in place in 1999 would be repeated, with a few adjustments here and there. The Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, and Mr. Mahajan would soon go to Hyderabad to finalise seat-sharing with the TDP.

The BJP ruled out the possibility of "adjusting" in its own ranks disgruntled members of its alliance partners. "No insider trading," was Mr. Mahajan's terse comment when asked whether the BJP would accommodate Sudip Bandopadhyaya of the Trinamool who had fallen foul of the party chief, Mamata Banerjee. The BJP would not interfere in the choice of candidates of constituencies given to coalition partners in the seat-sharing formula, he said.

The Board today decided to ask all its State units to hold their State election committee meetings between February 23 and March 5 to finalise their recommendations on the list of candidates from their States. Between March 10 and 15 the Parliamentary Board will meet daily to finalise the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and the States where Assembly elections are also due.

Finally, the Board discussed the possibility of some "individuals" joining the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The names of the former Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Arif Mohammad Khan, the former Test cricketer, Navjot Singh Sidhu, and actors Jitendra and Suresh Oberoi, are said to have come up. But Mr. Mahajan categorically ruled out the "re-entry" of the party's former Gujarat leader, Shankarsinh Waghela. There was no such proposal from either him or the BJP, he said.

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