The Hindu : Mahajan, Jaitley to talk it out with TDP on seats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 16, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Mahajan, Jaitley to talk it out with TDP on seats

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 15. Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders--Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley--have been appointed to negotiate seat adjustments with the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh for the coming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

This announcement by the BJP President, M. Venkaiah Naidu, is a signal that he will distance himself from seat-sharing talks with the TDP which have been a rather tortuous affair and a bit acrimonious even though the BJP is a junior partner.

"I will not interfere in the seat-sharing talks," he declared here today.

The BJP chief also tried to set at rest speculation that his daughter would contest the Assembly elections from Nellore. Recalling his earlier announcement that neither he nor any of his family members would be in the fray, he said a number of persons had approached him to field his daughter but he had turned down their suggestion.

Mr. Naidu disclosed that he had spoken to the AIADMK general secretary, J. Jayalalithaa, in Chennai yesterday on seat-sharing between the two parties in Tamil Nadu and was confident that an agreement would be clinched soon.

Coming down heavily on the Congress general secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad for describing the TDP-BJP alliance as "immoral," he asked whether the Congress-DMK-MDMK axis was pious. He said the Congress had earlier gone to the extent of blaming the DMK for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, an allegation with which the BJP did not concur.

He released copies of the text of the letter written by the former Congress president, Sitaram Kesari, to President K. R. Narayanan on November 28, 1997 while announcing the CWC's decision to withdraw support to the United Front Government. In that letter, the Congress leader had stated that the DMK had been indicted by the Jain Commission as a supporter of the LTTE, members of which were responsible for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.

Not stopping at that, the Congress had blamed the DMK leadership and the Tamil Nadu Government led by K. Karunanidhi of aiding and abetting the LTTE. "But, now Ms. Sonia Gandhi has no qualms in giving a good conduct certificate to Mr. Karunanidhi," he said.

Mr. Naidu asserted that there could be no comparison Congress-DMK and TDP-BJP alliances since the latter was not opportunistic. The TDP was supporting the NDA Government consistently since the last five years. He said the Congress party's anxiety to strike alliances with the Janata Dal factions in Karnataka and with the Left parties and TRS in Andhra Pradesh exposed its lack of self-confidence.

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