The Hindu : Front Page : BJP ready for tie-up with AIADMK

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BJP ready for tie-up with AIADMK

Neena Vyas

For Karnataka Assembly elections

Apparent request from AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa
‘She must identify the seats’

NEW DELHI: There is every indication that the Bharatiya Janata Party has agreed to share seats with the All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in the elections to the Karnataka Assembly.

Highly placed BJP sources said here on Friday that the party was “willing” to keep aside “a few” seats for the AIADMK in the elections slated for May. A request had apparently been made by AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa and “the BJP has conveyed its willingness.”

It was now for Ms. Jayalalithaa to identify the seats her party would like to contest, the sources added. The BJP will not contest those seats. However, the details and the number of such constituencies have yet to be worked out and agreed upon.

BJP’s hope

Senior party leaders said a successful alliance in Karnataka would certainly strengthen the ties between the two parties. The BJP was hopeful that it would lead to an alliance in Tamil Nadu for the Lok Sabha polls due next year.

The BJP had an alliance with the AIADMK in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, but after that the BJP government fell — the AIADMK had pulled back support — and the two parties went their separate ways.

In fact, the BJP went for an alliance with the rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for the Lok Sabha elections in 1999. The AIADMK had given the BJP five seats in the 1998 elections and the BJP won three. In 1999, the BJP contested six seats in the State in alliance with the DMK and won four.

In the 1999 Karnataka Assembly elections, the AIADMK won one seat — Kolar Gold Fields (SC). The successful candidate, M. Backthavachalam, later left the party to join the Janata Dal (Secular). In the 2004 elections, the AIADMK drew a blank.

In recent times, there have been indications that the two parties are again warming up to each other after the cooling off in 1999. BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad had a meeting with Ms. Jayalalithaa in November.

After the BJP’s Gujarat Assembly election victory this year, Ms. Jayalalithaa invited Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for a Pongal lunch.

Party leaders here believe that a successful tie-up between the two parties in the Karnataka polls would certainly help cement the more important agreement for seat-sharing in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

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