SMITA GUPTA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2003 01:05:38 AM ]

NEW DELHI : The BJP is not entirely confident that along with its
current NDA allies, it can form a government after the next general
elections.


So, sources said, the party is in close touch — directly and through
intermediaries — with Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, Sharad
Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, with
the long-term objective of getting them to back the NDA.



The BJP's gameplan is to ensure that these three parties help keep
the Congress' numbers down, so that the BJP again emerges as the
single largest party.



In UP, the BJP by ``helping'' the SP to form the government is hoping
that it won't come to an arrangement with the Congress in the state.



In Maharashtra, the NCP gave evidence of its affection for the BJP by
helping to sabotage the Congress candidate's chances in the Solapur
LS by-election and in the forthcoming assembly elections, it is
putting up candidates in Chhattisgarh in the hope that it will cut
into the Congress votebank, apart from the fact that Sharad Pawar
again recently raised the foreign origin issue


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