Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh, who has declared his bete noir Kalyan Singh as the party's chief ministerial candidate in the next assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, on Monday ruled out the possibility of any alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, with which it had a tie-up earlier.
However, the BJP has kept the options open for tie-ups in the states going to polls shortly.
Slamming BSP President Mayawati in an interview to PTI for her observations in her recent autobiography that she was open to an alliance with the BJP provided it threw out some of its leaders, Rajnath quipped, "We are not eager for a tie-up, Why is she so keen."
While not ruling out any alliance for the upcoming assembly elections in five states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the BJP president maintained that the party was not making any efforts to woo United Progressive Alliance allies to the National Democratic Alliance fold.
"If anyone wants to come, they are welcome. Some UPA allies have started realising that NDA was better compared to the Congress-led coalition," he said.
To a question about the recent inclusion of some party leaders in her team by expelled leader Uma Bharti, he merely said, "We have not received any reports from the state units on this."
Promising a 'stormy' Budget session of Parliament, the BJP chief said inflation, Quattrocchi, Volcker and the Bihar assembly dissolution topped the party's agenda.
Seeking to revive Congress President Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin issue, he said she may run her party but not the country and that constitutional posts should not be influenced by globalisation.
Refusing to be drawn into the controversy whether his predecessor L K Advani will be the party's prime ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha elections, he said the party required the 'guidance' of both Advani and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"The Quattrocchi episode has proved our apprehensions on the foreign origin issue to be true. Even the prime minister, in his press conference, acknowledged the influence of Sonia Gandhi on the UPA government. Let her run the party but she should have nothing to do with running the country," he said.
Asked whether the BJP under him favoured the demand for a law to bar people of foreign origin from occupying high offices, Rajnath said, "Along with addressing the concerns of national security and economic security, it should be ensured that the process of globalisation does not touch our Constitutional offices."
In pursuance of the party's Hindutva agenda, he said a meeting of the chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states, to discuss ways and means to identify and extradite Bangladeshi infiltrators from their respective states, will be called soon.
"I will talk to them. We do not want infiltrators to create a demographic imbalance," he asserted.
In the BJP's first comments on the airport modernisation issue, the party chief said, "It (the bidding process) was short on transparency. If there is no basis (for the charge), why should a party (Reliance) go to court against it?"
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