Brand BJP plan for UP polls

Brand BJP plan their strategy for the ballot battle for assembly polls to be fought in the state of UP which has immense significance with large numbers of voters plus maximum number of parliamentary seats for which the polls are due in 2014 unless snap polls may result after UP assembly polls.

BJP has said it will go it alone in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections early next year and accused its political opponents of playing caste politics which had dented its vote bank."The party has suffered loss in past elections due to casteist politics played by opposition parties. In the coming elections BJP will not experiment with any pre or post-poll alliance," its national vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said in Lucknow on Wednesday.

Terming joining hands with BSP as the biggest mistake of the party, Naqvi said that it would not be repeated again."Except for JD(U), for which we will be leaving some seats, we will not be entering into any alliance," he said.About the casteist politics, Naqvi said that his party unsuccessfully tried to counter it but now the situation has changed and people of the state want development, which would be the main issue of the party in coming polls.

On declaration of party candidates, the BJP leader said that over 60 percent tickets were almost final and it would be declared soon.The 2012 polls of Uttar Pradesh will be turning point for both UPA and NDA as the polls would give new direction, he said adding that during the party national executive meet starting on 3rd June the party's poll strategy would be discussed.

Asked about the Ram temple issue, Naqvi said that it was not a political issue and was not in the agenda of party's executive meet.About the meet, he said that it would discuss issues of corruption, national security and others besides state politics and candidates for the state assembly polls.On chances of leaders like Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti and Govindachara joining BJP, Naqvi said, "Till now I did not see any chance of return of any big leader in the party fold".He said that party would get absolute majority in the Assembly polls and form the government in the state.

Cong against of 4 senior ministers receiving Ramdev

New Delhi, Jun 1 (PTI) Congress today disapproved of the government's unprecedented step of sending four senior ministers to the airport to receive yoga guru Baba Ramdev in a bid to persuade him not to go ahead with the protest from June 4 saying it was "unnecessary".

"The party is not at all related to this entire exercise of sending the ministers to the airport to meet the Yoga Guru). We were not consulted. Was an yoga camp going on there?" highly-placed sources in Congress said, reflecting the disconnect between the government and the party over the issue.

They said talks with Ramdev were fine but there was no need to send the ministers to the airport to meet him.

The sources also suggested that Congress President Sonia Gandhi was not in the loop over the decision. "The party has nothing to do with it", they said.