The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `BJP should go it alone in Assembly polls'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`BJP should go it alone in Assembly polls'

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, MAY 22 . The Bharatiya Janata Party should go it alone in the next Assembly elections, the former Union Minister, S. Thirunavukkarasar, told presspersons here today.

Blaming the BJP's electoral debacle on wrong alliances, he said this factor and some "anti-people policies" pursued in the State led to the defeat of the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-BJP combine. He could have won from Pudukottai had the seat been allotted to him. But, a faulty approach led to allocation of constituencies where the BJP had no chance of victory, Mr. Thirunavukkarasar said.

To a question why the BJP did not protest against the allocation of seats, he admitted that there was little option when a larger party in the State took decisions on behalf of the alliance. A last-minute compulsion also led to the BJP accepting the seats allocated. No individual, including the State president, C.P. Radhakrishnan, could be blamed for the defeat. "Everyone in the alliance is to be held responsible."

Even as he welcomed the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa's decision to withdraw cases against the media and many other measures which met with resistance from various sections, Mr. Thirunavukkarasar attributed the electoral defeat to some of these and asserted that the BJP would have to go it alone in the Assembly elections to prove its presence in the State.

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