2009 Poll Prospects And Alignments-2

[Guest]

<b> BJP withdraws support to Patnaik government</b>

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>In Bihar, 16:24 formula works</b>
pioneer.com PNS | New Delhi
An alliance between the BJP and the Janta Dal (United) for Bihar is in sight with both parties reaching "closer" to finalising the agreement. The verbal dual between the State leadership of both the parties notwithstanding, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley held closed-door meetings here on Saturday to hammer out the “minor differences.”

<b>There are indications that the BJP and JD(U) will divide the 40 Lok Sabha seats among themselves in the ratio of 16: 24. The same formula was applied in 2004. But, sources said an exchange of a few seats between the two parties was not ruled out</b>. An announcement on this issue is expected after Holi and another round of talks between Nitish and Jaitley soon.

"We will make the announcement in the next two or three days. We do not discuss seat-sharing with our allies through the media," Jaitley said after meeting Kumar in the national capital.
...
Former Union Minister Syed Shahnawaj Hussain unsuccessfully contested from Kisanganj while BJP's Hukumdeo Narayn Yadav lost to Dr Shakeel Ahmed of the Congress in Madhubani. The BJP had taken a strong exception to the announcement even when the seat-sharing talks were in process. More so, it had asked the JD(U) to leave two seats — Siwan and Muzaffarpur — it contested last time.

The BJP is hopeful of an electoral victory in Siwan given that Shahabuddin would not be in the fray this time. The controversial RJD MP has been sentenced to life in a murder case and a Supreme Court verdict bars him from contesting elections.

Likewise, former Defence Minister <b>George Fernandes </b>is willing to shift from Muzaffarpur to <b>Nalanda</b>, his home constituency that he vacated for Nitish Kumar in 2004. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

With due respect to George Fernandez for all his past contributions, I wonder why he is contesting at all instead of retiring. The guy I understand is very sick. Do these politicians ever know that they have to yield to the yonger ones gracefully at some time in their life. Take Vajpayee for example, he never resigned his seat when he knew he is sick and cannot carry on. Neither did he attend the parliament nor did he do any work for his constituents. You then have the criminal MPs too who spent most of their time in airconditioned jails. This kind of dog in the manger politics is most vexatious in India.

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Rather than hide behind some pollster's projections (which more often than not have been wrong), we decided to stick our neck out. We picked the brains of our bureaus across India as well as the national bureau. We argued and differed on some estimates. Finally, here's what we came up with. The UPA is likely to win 201 seats, the NDA 195, the Third Front 82 and Others 65.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/TOI-est...how/4231179.cms

[Guest]

With BJD pullling out, NDA dreams of coming to power have gone down the drain. The only thing BJP can hope for is that it keeps the other alliances and improves its performance.

[Capt M Kumar]

If BJD does not survive assembly com(confidence of motion), there are chances that BJD may have post poll alliance w/ BJP.

[Guest]

BJD will survive the confidence motion because it has the support of commies, JMM and independents. Right now BJD is on an upswing and it must have already lined up the independents. This is their considered strategy. They put in demands that they knew BJP could not accept.

BJD has dumped BJP, That;s what this is. BJP has to show its strength in the coming elections.

[Capt M Kumar]

Still I feel that overall picture may change if BJP on it's own turns out to be stronger than now in this state and if I am not wrong, this is the state where there is simultaneous election of Assembly and Lok Sabha.

'BJP has to show its strength in the coming elections'. I think u also mean the same as I.

[Guest]

BJP has weakened in the state and that is the reason they are being dumped by BJD. In any case, this is the time for BJP to clean up the organization in the state.

[Guest]

<b>The unravelling of the alliances</b>

[Guest]

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Sena ready to back Advani for P.M. and agrees to be part of NDA</span>

Mumbai: The deadlock between the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party over the allocation of Maharashtra's 48 Lok Sabha seats is over, with an agreement on dividing Mumbai's six and Thane's four seats between them.The alliance has also settled their row over the Kalyan seat. It has been agreed that the Sena will contest from Kalyan while the BJP will fight from the neighbouring Bhiwandi constituency.

According to BJP sources, the Sena has also accepted the BJP's condition to back LK Advani as the alliance's prime ministerial candidate and has said it will remain a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the next five years.

The bitter battle between the two for Mumbai South is over with the BJP conceding the seat to the Sena. The BJP had sought it on traditional grounds (it has contested this seat in the past) for its candidate, Poonam Mahajan, daughter of the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan. But the Sena had insisted that after the delimitation, Mohan Rawle, who represented (the old) Mumbai South-Central for five consecutive terms, be allowed to contest the Mumbai South seat.

The Mumbai South-Central seat will be with the Sena. In 2004, Congress' debutant Eknath Gaikwad had upset former Maharashtra chief minister and Sena leader Manohar Joshi in this constituency.

Mumbai North-Central, which BJP and Sena had both sought, will go to the former, while Mumbai North-West will go the Sena.

BJP vice president and one time MP Kirit Somaiya is expected to contest from Mumbai North-East, where he is well-known for having voiced various issues. He had played a major role in setting Nahur station on Central Railways, between Bhandup and Mulund.
Mumbai North is the bastion of BJP's former petroleum minister Ram Naik, who has won the seat five times before he lost to film actor Govinda in 2004. He is expected to be nominated this time too.

In Thane district, the Sena will contest from Kalyan and Thane while the BJP will fight it out from neighbouring Bhiwandi and Palghar, according to sources.

The final settlement between the 22-year-old allies came about after a series of meetings the Sena's Manohar Joshi and BJP's Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari over last three days.

Meanwhile, Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut stated, "We support Advani as the prime ministerial candidate. Today, terrorism is on rise in the name of secularism. All parties who believe in Hindutva need to come together to combat terrorism."

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1237647

[Guest]

Congress is getting stabbed back and front by its allies! Does it have allies?? Or should I say with allies like these who needs enemies? Hope the Congress Party doesn't even get the third place.

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&:blow--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blow.gif' /><!--endemo--> PATNA: Dealing a major blow to the Congress in Bihar, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Monday practically ended ties with it by putting up candidates
in three constituencies where Congress has sitting MPs.

Earlier, the three seats -- Sasaram (SC), Madhubani and Aurangabad -- were allotted to the Congress by the RJD-LJP combine.

At a hurriedly called press conference in Patna, the railway minister released his party's list of candidates from 28 seats, leaving the remaining 12, out of 40 Lok Sabha seats, for the LJP.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/L...how/4304216.cms

[ramana]

One thing to keep in mind is that UPA came together after the last elections to keep the NDA out of power. So its not strange that the present members are doing their best to improve their chaces of obtaining the maximum seats/MPS they can get in order to bargian in future. They can come together again after the elections to keep the NDA/BJP out of power.

Its for the better if the people see them for what they are and dont vote them into office.

[Capt M Kumar]

Asked what the Trinamool Congress would do if the Congress sought support of the Left parties in case the Third Front did not materialise to form the government, she said her party had entered into an alliance knowing well that the Congress would not seek support of the Left.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/T...how/4306535.cms

[Capt M Kumar]

Sources here said the PMK had accepted the AIADMK's offer of seven Lok Sabha seats and support for a Rajya Sabha nomination for A Ramadoss in the next biennial polls. The party's ties with the DMK had reached a point of no return as bitterness between their cadres and mutual distrust at the leadership level was high, sources said.

Congress has not given up trying to keep the PMK in its fold with sources saying that it was going to hold one more round of talks with the PMK leadership in a desperate bid to keep the Vanniyar outfit inside the UPA tent.

The party's anxiety to keep the PMK from switching camps came off clearly when Sonia Gandhi was asked to comment on the possibility of loss of another ally after the collapse of the UPA in Bihar. "As of now there is no change," she said, the remark reflecting the party's fear as well as the flickering hope.

But M Karunanidhi, the lead player in the TN alliance, had already given up on the Vanniyar outfit. Hours after Anbumani's meeting with Patel, the DMK chief lashed out at PMK founder S Ramadoss for the first time in several months, in what could defeat Congress's hopes of saving the alliance.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Blow-fo...how/4310968.cms

[Guest]

To close the thread soon