After Uttar Pradesh BJP unit chief Keshav Chandra Maurya ruled out any alliance for the state Assembly polls next year, Union minister Mahesh Sharma too stated that the saffron party would contest the
After Uttar Pradesh BJP unit chief Keshav Chandra Maurya ruled out any alliance for the state Assembly polls next year, Union minister Mahesh Sharma too stated that the saffron party would contest the elections on its own. Mr Sharma also repeated Mr Maurya’s earlier assertions that the BJP would stick to the development agenda.
Claiming that the BJP will get over 265 out of 403 seats in UP, Mr Sharma told PTI that the BJP’s focus during the campaign would be on development, good governance and rooting out corruption. He added that the contentious issues, including the Ram temple, would not be on the party agenda for the state polls.
“Construction of Ram temple is the wish of millions of people as a matter of faith. We do not want to make it a political issue. It is not on our political agenda. But people of this country want a Ram temple at Ayodhya. We want to do it (construct the temple) either by consensus mode or verdict by court of law,” Mr Sharma told the news agency.
Admitting that the morale of the BJP is better after the win in the Assam polls, Mr Sharma said party leaders are considering the elections in the politically crucial state as a “special task that has to be accomplished”.
He, however, ruled out having truck with any party either before or after elections. “We will not have any alliance with any of the parties, whether it is the Lok Dal (INLD) or any other party. No pre-poll, no post-poll alliance of any sort,” he told the news agency. Incidentally, the BJP had won 71 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 polls. The party had won just 47 seats in the 2012 Assembly polls. The BJP’s vote share was 42 per cent in the last Lok Sabha polls as against 15 per cent in the Assembly polls in 2012.
