The Hindu : BJP-Sena tie-up for Assembly polls almost over

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 26, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

BJP-Sena tie-up for Assembly polls almost over

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI April 25. Anticipating early elections to the Maharashtra Assembly, along with Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi in all probability, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have organised themselves to the extent that the former announced today that "even our seat adjustments are virtually over". Elections are due on September 2004 in ordinary circumstances.

With the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party coming closer to the idea of a pre-poll alliance this time compared to the bitter fight in 1999, the two saffron parties have felt compelled to get their act together quickly and begin planning agitational and even public meetings together. This has never happened before in the 19 years of their relationship. That the BJP general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, the man who keeps the Sena-BJP together despite several crisis points in the stormy but long relationship, should announce that all plans have been made is considered significant.

He even said that the old seat-sharing formula — 171 for Sena and 117 for the BJP out of the 288 — was still on. It did not matter if the Sena got more on that count as a share.

Addressing the media before the State executive and office-bearers meeting today, Mr. Mahajan who superintends the poll for the BJP in the other four States, said "we are not so keen on leading in the alliance but anxious that the alliance of ours leads Maharashtra".

The speed, based on its calculations that the polls would be ahead of schedule, points to the reality that Maharashtra is as important for the BJP even in forming alliances as were Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi.

"Prior to the 2004 Lok Sabha, this will be the biggest trial of strength between the BJP and Congress," Mr. Mahajan said.

In the other States, the BJP would face the electorate on its own, not having any arrangement with any other partner of the National Democratic Alliance, Mr. Mahajan said, except in Maharashtra where it had the second longest surviving alliance, the oldest being the Left Front in West Bengal. He said that many of the NDA partners would be in the fray in the four States.

Tomorrow, about 450-500 key leaders of the Sena and the BJP, from Bal Thackeray and Mr. Mahajan downwards, would attend a joint meeting to discuss and prepare an action plan so that "everyone from the two parties works together from the village level upwards".

PTI reports:

Mr. Mahajan down played Bal Thackeray's attack on the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, for extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan. "Both Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Thackeray are saying the same things in different words," he told presspersons.

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BJP-Sena tie-up for Assembly polls almost over