The Hindu : BJP to go it alone in November Assembly polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003

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National

BJP to go it alone in November Assembly polls

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Sept. 10. The BJP will fight the Assembly elections in the five States due in November on its own and will not enter into any electoral alliance with any party, the general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, said here today.

Briefing presspersons on the meeting of the party's office-bearers, which discussed the party's preparedness for the elections, Mr. Mahajan said the political situation in these States was encouraging and the party was confident of winning decisively in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and of entering the Mizoram Assembly for the first time.

These elections were important as they would be the last trial of strength between the two principal parties before the next parliamentary elections. Also, the States going to the polls were now being ruled by the Congress but were earlier ruled by the BJP. They were States where the BJP had gained a substantial number of Lok Sabha seats in the 1999 election, though it had lost all the seats in the Assembly election in 1998, he said.

Asked if the party considered the elections as a referendum on the Vajpayee Government at the Centre, Mr. Mahajan said it did not. On the other hand, it was a referendum on the performance of the Chief Ministers concerned.

To another question, Mr. Mahajan said the meeting did not discuss the Ramjanmabhoomi issue or the report of the Archaeological Survey of India. He, however, claimed that the report had proved beyond doubt the existence of "Ramjanmasthan".

Declining to comment on the probable decision of the court, Mr. Mahajan said that with `concrete proof' now available, leaders, including Syed Shahabuddin, who had said "prove it and take it'', should accept the report.

He wondered why Muslim organisations could not be magnanimous and accept the report and help promote brotherhood between the Hindus and Muslims.

The BJP leader said the meeting had set a deadline (October 15) for completing organisation elections in States except those going to the polls this year.

The party had decided to conduct a mass contact programme from September 25 to October 2. It would hold a convention of new voters in the districts.

The party president, Venkaiah Naidu, urged the party workers to focus on the progress achieved and the good performance of the Vajpayee-led NDA Government and "step up the attack on the 47 years of misrule and failures of the Congress Governments at the Centre."

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