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JD-U all ready to hold hands with Vajpayee

The Election Commission has allotted the symbol of arrow to the Janata Dal (United).

With that the JDU's entry into the National Democratic Alliance appears certain now, especially with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee describing it as an asset.

JD-U politician Ram Vilas Paswan said Vajpayee's statement had cleared the hurdles that blocked the party from joining the NDA.

Senior party politicians, including George Fernandes, Sharad Yadav, Ramakrishna Hegde, Paswan and J H Patel met at Karnakata Bhavan this morning to arrive at an understanding on the symbol, flag and strategy to be adopted for the election.

Talking to reporters after the hour-long meeting, M Raghupathy, Lok Shakti spokesperson, said preliminary talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party on sharing seats in Karantaka would begin today.

The Lok Shakti politician is scheduled to meet BJP spokesperson M Venkiah Naidu during the course of the day.

The JDU is likely to press for 13 Lok Sabha and 100-odd assembly seats in Karnataka. Party leaders will meet again on Tuesday evening to finalise matters.

Meanwhile, in Bihar, the electoral alliance has run into rough weather with the JD-U and BJP demanding more seats.

Samata Party leader Nitish Kumar has been entrusted with the job of settling the matter.

Kumar said his party wants at least 27 seats this time based on the "ground realities and the popularity of the erstwhile Samata Party after its merger with the Janata Dal (United)."

The united party's total vote percentage last time was equal to that of the BJP and hence there was no question of any "compromise with less than 50 per cent share", he said.

BJP spokesperson Kiran Ghai, for her part, said that in the 1996 Lok Sabha election, the Samata Party had got only six seats. The assembly segment-wise results of the 1998 general election also indicated that while the BJP led in 112 seats, the Samata could establish a lead only in 62 seats.

Ghai said her party is capable of contesting all 54 seats in Bihar on its own. But to keep the alliance going, it is ready to make some adjustments. She appealed to the JD-U politicians to refrain from issuing provocative statements.

Meanwhile, the expelled BJP politicians who have formed the Bihar Vikas Party announced that they would contest 25 Lok Sabha seats. BVP president Tarakant Jha said alliance talks with the Nationalist Congress Party are underway.

UNI

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