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The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday formally decided to "join hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party" to form a coalition government in Uttar Pradesh, party president Jana Krishnamurthy said.
Krishnamurthy announced the decision after a meeting of the party's parliamentary board at Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Race Course Road residence in New Delhi.
Leaders of the two parties had been meeting for the past few days to chalk out a strategy to form the UP government, he said.
BSP leader Mayawati would be the chief minister, he said, adding that other details would be shortly worked out.
Asked about the proposed government's coordination committee and its common minimum programme, Krishnamurthy said UP Governor Vishnukant Shastri would have to be informed about the decision after which he would take certain constitutional steps
Accompanying Krishnamurthy during the briefing were state BJP leaders Rajnath Singh, Kalraj Mishra and Lalji Tandon.
"Yes, the idea of a deputy chief minister in UP has been abandoned," Singh told a reporter. Mishra and Tandon, however, declined to answer any questions.
The party president declined to say if the proposed government would be formed before or after the opposition-sponsored censure motion in the Lok Sabha on the Gujarat issue on April 30.
A senior BJP official told rediff.com over phone that Mayawati had virtually threatened Vajpayee and Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani that if the BSP-BJP government was not formed immediately, her 13 MPs would not extend support to the government during the censure motion.
Election 2002: The Complete Coverage
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