BJP to fight poll sans AGP

GUWAHATI, February 24: The Bharatiya Janata Party is going to fight the next Assembly election in the State with the 'aim' to capture power on its own, the BJP national general secretary (organisation) Narendra Modi today said while ruling out any poll alliance with the ruling AGP as per the wishes of the State BJP unit. Modi who is here to attend the two-day conference of central office-bearers of the party being held outside New Delhi for the first time, reiterated that there was no possibility of any electoral understanding with the AGP as the State BJP was opposed to it. He, however, said the party was not averse to electoral understanding with NDA partners in the State. He dismissed the Assam Congress allegation of 'secret AGP-BJP' understanding as bogus saying that people would not believe in what Congress party says, as the party is no longer taken seriously in the country. He asserted that Congress had no future in the country, as was reflected in the recent by-election to eleven Lok Sabha seats. The Congress was defeated by NDA allies in ten out of the eleven seats. The BJP central office-bearers' meeting is being attended by as many as 17 senior party leaders including the party president Bangaru Laxman, former president Kushabhau Thakre and Union HRD Minister, Murali Manohar Joshi. Modi said the party's central office-bearers' meeting was being held in Guwahati to enthuse the party units of the region as they had been doing a splendid job in expending the organisational and electoral base of the party in the Northeast. The BJP meeting today viewed with concern that unabated extortion by the insurgents in the region had resulted in flight of capital from the region, which would lead to a serious setback for development process and in creation of employment avenues. The party central leaders termed the India-Myanmar pact for joint operation against NE militants as a step in the right direction. The BJP central leaders observed that insurgency-hit states of the region had become threats to the security of the country's Northeast frontier. Today's meeting, chaired by the party president, Bangaru Laxman, noted that the north eastern region had tremendous potential for rapid economic development and observed that the Rs 10,000 crore special package announced by the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would go a long way in expediting the process of development in the region. The party leaders further expressed concern over the nexus between extremists, politicians and mafia in the region who were responsible for increasing political instability, lack of economic development and serious law-and-order breakdown in the region.