The Hindu : 'NCP open to alliance with BJP in Nagaland'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

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National

'NCP open to alliance with BJP in Nagaland'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 6. A day after the Congress said it was open to electoral alliances, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today said the party was its main rival in the coming elections in Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. Also, the NCP indicated that it was not averse to being part of an alliance that included the Bharatiya Janata Party in Nagaland as its goal was to defeat the Congress. Though the NCP maintained the BJP was its principal opponent at the national level because "their kind of Hindutva is dangerous", the party general secretary, P.A. Sangma, said the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, "is our main rival on the personality question".

To ensure the defeat of the Congress in the four States, slated to go to the polls in February, the NCP is in the process of tying up with local parties. In Himachal Pradesh, Mr. Sangma said the Himachal Ekta Manch — led by Ranjit Singh Dyal of `Operation Bluestar' fame — had merged with the NCP with its 2,00,000 members. Following the merger, Lt. Gen. Dyal had been made the president of the State NCP unit.

While the party would go it alone in Meghalaya, it has entered into an alliance with the Nagaland People's Front in the neighbouring State. Asked if the NCP would be part of the front if the BJP were to join it — efforts are being made to rope in the BJP, the Samata Party and the Janata Dal(U) to dislodge the Congress Government in the State — Mr. Sangma replied in the affirmative. "Even if the BJP is in this front, we do not mind because we are making a united effort to ensure that the Congress is defeated."

In Tripura, the NCP has decided to contest only about a dozen seats despite claiming that a number of Trinamool Congress and Congress workers had joined it over the past fortnight. Though elections to the Chhattisgarh Assembly are scheduled later this year, the NCP is already in touch with various groups, including the one headed by the senior leader, V.C. Shukla, who is expected to part ways with the Congress ahead of the polls.

About the Congress' willingness to forge electoral alliances, Mr. Sangma said the party had been taught a lesson in Goa and Gujarat. "Their open mind to electoral alliances is an admission of their mistake, a realisation of how fast they are losing ground, and that Ms. Gandhi cannot deliver." He said the Congress was fighting for its survival. "An alternative to the Congress has to evolve, and the NCP is working towards that." He welcomed the senior Congress leader, Pranab Mukherjee's observation that the Congress was willing to have an alliance with the NCP and the Trinamool Congress

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