NEW DELHI, Feb 16 ? The possibility of an alliance between the BJP and AGP has receded with the national party?s central leadership today maintaining that it would go all alone in Assam. Talking to newsmen after the BJP Parliamentary Board meeting, general secretary of the Party Pramod Mahajan said that there will no alliance in Assam. However, he added that in other North Eastern States, the Party may go in for alliance in one or two seats.
The clarification by the BJP?s central leadership came even as it asked all its State units to get into election mode and convene State Election Committee meeting between February 25 to March 5 to finalise the panel of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP Central Election Committee is slated to meet everyday between March 10 to March 15 to clear the list of candidates. The finalisation of the Party?s pre-poll schedule was on the assumption that Election Commission would hold polls from April 20 onwards in a phase manner.
This was among some of the vital decisions taken by the eight-member BJP Parliamentary Board that met here this morning under the chairmanship of the Party?s national president, M Venkaiah Naidu at Prime Minister?s 7 Race Course Residence. The other members of the Board included, Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister, LK Advani, Human Resources Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, Sanjay Joshi besides Sri Mahajan.
Meanwhile, the prospect of the BJP sharing a few seats with the North East Peoples Forum is bright despite the opposition of the State BJP units of the Region. It is only in case of Assam that the BJP seems to have agreed to go along with the wishes of the Assam State unit, which unanimously pleaded with the Central leadership to allow it fight the polls alone.
But there is a catch, the BJP Parliamentary Board, which is the highest poll-related decision-making body of the Party did not formally give clearance to Assam unit to go all alone like it did to Haryana State unit. The Board today gave clearance to Haryana unit to severe its ties with Chautala?s INLD and field candidates in all of 10 seats in the State. The Haryana State unit has desired to fight alone in 10 Lok Sabha seats. The Parliamentary Board today has agreed to the resolution, Sri Mahajan told newsmen.
In the meeting with the State units of the North Eastern States, Sri Naidu assured his Party colleagues that their view-point was noted by the Central leadership and a final decision would be taken in consultation with them. Meanwhile, BJP leader said that the Party was contemplating to contest in about 350 seats leaving the rest to its NDA partners.
Replying to a question, Sri Mahajan hinted that the NEPF was likely to join the NDA. Chief Minister of Nagaland, N.Rio and P.A.Sangma have been engaged in negotiations with the BJP and NDA leaders to pave the way for the Forum?s entry into NDA.