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'BJP will marry Mulayam and Pawar after poll'

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshi Ram Friday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party was looking at Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Pawar for post-poll friendship and, subsequently, government formation.

Addressing a rally in Bhopal, he said there were ample indication that the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party would become BJP allies after election. Mulayam Singh was keeping away from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance now because he did not want to lose Muslim votes.

"Once the SP wins a few seats, it can be seen sitting in the lap of the BJP," Kanshi Ram said.

The BSP leader said the NCP was also moving along the same path, and Pawar had even "snatched" the BJP's poll-plank to fight the Congress. The BJP was not sure about its victory. Hence, it was banking on its allies by forming the NDA, he added.

The attempt to prepare some parties to become post-poll allies also indicated that the BJP was in a panic, Kanshi Ram said.

His party's aim was to be a balancing force in the country's power equation. He would be quite happy if there were four elections in five years. Kanshi Ram quoted figures to drive home the point that the percentage of votes polled by his party had increased after each election.

The BSP was working with the objective to poll at least 33 million votes and bag 10 per cent of the Lok Sabha seats this time, he said.

Describing Uttar Pradesh as the BSP's "political laboratory", he said his party had decided to contest all the 85 seats there. It would also field candidates in other states to win "about 55 seats".

Kanshi Ram said the BJP was his party's "enemy number one." He urged his partymen to work to prevent both the BJP and the Congress from gaining more than 150 seats.

Alleging that the BJP-led government had demonstrated its ''ineptness'' on all fronts during its 13-month rule at the Centre, he said Pakistan's intruders had occupied Indian positions in August last year, but the government came to know about it a long time later.

''What was the intelligence machinery doing for so long?" he asked.

UNI

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