Tandon, Mittal differ on seat sharing with SAD

Chandigarh, May 31 (UNI) Senior BJP leaders Balramji Das Tandon and Madan Mohan Mittal today expressed different opinions on the issue of seat sharing with its ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the lections to the 117-member Punjab Assembly due in February 2007.

Mr Tandon, the three-time cabinet minister in the erstwhile Badal regimes, told reporters today that winnability would be one of the main factors while deciding the sharing of seats with the SAD, while Mr Mittal stated that there was no reason for the BJP to come down from 23 seats which were contested by the party in 2002 assembly elections.

''The position of winnability will definitely be looked into and we cannot say anything as far as the exact number of seats are concerned,'' Mr Tandon said at a joint press conference which he held along with Mr Mittal at the BJP headquarters here.

''We have in-depth and old relations with Badal Sahib and I do not think there will be any problem in deciding the sharing of seats with them (SAD),'' Mr Tandon said.

The BJP had won only three seats out of the 23 it contested last time, while the SAD had won 42 out of 92 seats. The combine had left in vain two seats for the Bahujan Samaj Morcha.

Both Mr Tandon and Mr Mittal, who today appeared before the media here after almost four years, had lost the last elections in their Rajpura and Nangal constituencies repectively.

The three BJP leaders who had then made it to the Assembly included Avinash Rai Khanna from Garhshankar, Tikshan Sood from Hoshiarpur and Sukhpal Singh from Ferozepur.

The BJP, however lost the Garhshankar assembly by-election to the ruling Congress following Mr Khanna's election to the Lok Sabha.

In response to another question, Mr Tandon agreed that there were ''some minor differences of opinion'' within the state BJP.

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