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Mayawati's BSP to to go it alone (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) said on Wednesday it would not have any electoral alliance with any national party for the coming general elections. "The BSP has decided that we will contest the elections alone throughout the country. We will not form any alliance with a regional or national level party," BSP chief Mayawati told reporters here. Mayawati said she would decide on post-poll alliances depending on the results. "Ater the polls, the party will take a decision on forming an alliance taking the party interest into consideration. The post- poll alliance can be with anyone," she said.

          She released for the first time the party's manifesto and the first list of 205 candidates, including 75 seats from Uttar Pradesh. She also announced that the party would contest 325 Lok Sabha seats all over the country. Significantly, she did not announce party candidates from her seat Akbarpur (r) and Bahariach, Hapur, Agra and Lucknow. While declining to reveal from where she would contest, the BSP leader said they would put up a "strong" candidate against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow.

          The BSP has wide influence in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the maximum 80 Lok Sabha members. Mayawati twice formed government in Uttar Pradesh with support from the BJP. But both the experiments failed, the latest in last year after the BJP withdrew support to her government.

BJP strikes deal in Andhra (Go To Top)

         Hyderabad: The BJP and the TDP arrived at a seat- sharing understanding in Andhra Pradesh with the former getting nine Lok Sabha and 27 Assembly seats. "We have arrived at a consensus that the BJP will be given nine of the 42 Lok Sabha and 27 of the 294 Assembly seats," BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu told reporters here on Wednesday. Earlier, BJP president Venkaiah flew into Hyderabad for consultation with Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and party general secretary Pramod Mahajan ahead of talks with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on the seat-sharing issue to the Lok Sabha and State Assembly in Andhra Pradesh.

EC ban on wall posters and cutouts decried (Go To Top)

         Madurai: Political parties in the South have come out against the Election Commission's order banning poll advertisements on walls and cut-outs of politicians. The world's largest democracy goes to the polls in five phases, beginning next month. The district administration in Madurai city had ordered poll related graffiti on walls to be erased by March 7, but political parties have not followed the directive so far. Parties argue that wall painting is the cheapest way to inform people about poll-related issues. The order has also struck the cut-out makers, who earlier used to earn anything between 300,000 and 700,000 rupees in just one month of poll campaigning. Most of the south Indian states are known for their larger-than- life depiction of political leaders. Some of the cutouts are huge - hundred feet long and forty feet wide.