Date:14/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/14/stories/2008111462131400.htm

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It’s official, AGP in NDA fold

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Asom Gana Parishad will join hands in the Lok Sabha elections due next year. The seat-sharing arrangement has yet to be worked out.

Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, BJP president Rajnath Singh and AGP president Chandra Mohan Patwari told journalists here on Thursday that the two parties would work together to find a solution to Assam’s problems, especially the issue of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The two parties, it was pointed out, shared a common view on this question and they worked together earlier. Mr. Advani said the recent bomb blasts in the border State once again underlined the urgent need to address security concerns.

A joint statement said: “Both [parties] subscribe to the view that to save India we must save Assam and to achieve this, the BJP and the AGP must unite all non-Congress forces in the State.”

The two parties would try to find a permanent solution to the basic issues — implementation of the Assam Accord, sealing of the border with Bangladesh, issuing of photo identity cards, solution to floods and erosion, and restoration of peace through a meaningful political dialogue with militant outfits. They would work to grant Scheduled Tribe status to six deserving communities as was already recommended by the Assembly, the statement said.

Mr. Singh said the AGP’s entry into the National Democratic Alliance was a first step to its expansion. In the days to come, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, more parties would join the coalition.

Apparently, the alliance was stitched up at a meeting of leaders of the two parties here on Wednesday. From the BJP, Jaswant Singh and Sushma Swaraj led the talks. Currently, the two parties have two MPs each in the Lok Sabha from Assam.

Talking separately to journalists, Mr. Singh expressed his unhappiness with “defamation of Hindu leaders and Hindu organisations.” He was referring to the ongoing investigations into the Malegaon bomb explosions by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad.