The Hindu : BJP 'talking' to Sukh Ram's party

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2003

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National

BJP 'talking' to Sukh Ram's party

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 21. The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership confirmed today that it was indeed "talking to'' the Himachal Vikas Party leader, Sukh Ram, for a possible tie-up in the Assembly elections next month.

Although no arrangement has been finalised as yet, it seems that the talks will be about at least nine Assembly segments — five which Mr. Sukh Ram won in the last Assembly elections and four in which his party candidate was second after the Congress candidate.

So far, the official line of the BJP has been that it is going it alone in Himachal, that it has the requisite strength to do so, and that it is confident of forming a government again as the current Dhumal Government has performed well.

But it seems that the party wants to keep Mr. Sukh Ram engaged to prevent him from tying up with the Congress. The HVP polled just more than 10 per cent of the votes in the State last time and this could make all the difference between winning and losing in the constituencies which are small and the winning margins often in a few hundreds.

Another reason why the BJP would like to keep Mr. Sukh Ram away from the Congress is that without him, the Congress would not have a major Brahmin leader in Himachal. If the HVP ties up with the BJP, the alliance will have two Brahmin leaders — Mr. Sukh Ram and the former Chief Minister, Shanta Kumar.

Senior BJP leaders also disclosed that candidates for about 45 seats had been cleared informally. A meeting of the BJP central election committee is scheduled for January 29 when the list of candidates will be finalised formally. But even before that, some key leaders will be sitting to do the preliminary work.

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