The Hindu : Front Page : Flurry of meetings in BJP camp

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 13, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

Flurry of meetings in BJP camp

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, MAY 12. For the first time since the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party has begun to seriously consider the possibility of the National Democratic Alliance falling short of the bare majority mark, which itself will be two or three notches below the 272-seat mark. This is because polling in four constituencies will be completed only by the end of this month. However, the party is confident that it will emerge "way ahead" of the Congress-led alliance in the numbers game.

"We will get a majority or be close to a majority. In any case, we will be way ahead of the other camp," the BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, said after a two-hour meeting this morning with the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and after separate confabulations with the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani. The BJP has convened on Friday a meeting of its parliamentary board, the highest decision-making body where matters such as alliances will be discussed. A meeting of all NDA partners is also expected on May 15.

Several strategy sessions were held throughout the day, but party leaders said concrete moves to try and add to the NDA's strength by getting allies would begin only tomorrow after the numerical strength of individual parties and the two major formations become clear. The three persons the party is fielding to get additional allies, if needed, are Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, and the NDA convener and Janata Dal (United) leader, George Fernandes.

At the meeting in the Prime Minister's residence, the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, was present.

It became clear that every single Lok Sabha seat counts when the BJP said that it had done some detailed homework and concluded that the majority mark could be closer to 268 or 269, at least till the end of this month. Polling will not be completed in four Lok Sabha constituencies — Outer Manipur and Chapra, Siwan and Bettiah in Bihar — till May-end. In addition, there will be a few vacancies, as some candidates are contesting from two constituencies each — H.D. Deve Gowda and Laloo Prasad Yadav are among them. The Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, will also have to decide whether he wants to continue as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister or become a leader at the Centre, and the BJP candidate from Gonda is dead (if he wins, there will be a vacancy).

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