SAD, BJP hold talks on seat sharing, form joint committee

Ludhiana, July 9 (UNI) Staunch allies BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) here today held talks to decide on the seat sharing and the poll strategy for the Punjab Assembly elections due in February 2007, and announced that there would be a common minimum programme but no joint manifesto for the voters.

The two allies, at the meeting, formed a 'state level Coordination Committee' which would decide the seat allotment for all the 117 assembly constituencies and also chalk out the poll strategy.

The members of this Coordination Committee inlcuded Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, Balwinder Singh Bhunder and Gurdev Badal from the SAD and the BJP's Navjot Singh Sidhu, Harjit Grewal, Prof Rajinder Bhandari and Vijay Sampla.

''Both the parties will have separate manifestos but we will work together with a common minimum programme after the elections,'' senior BJP leader and Punjab affairs incharge Arun Jaitley said at a joint press conference with SAD president Parkash Singh Badal after the meeting.

Mr Badal said SAD and BJP were ''a single family'' and there would be no hiccups on seat sharing.

When asked whether the Akali-BJP combine would entertain any other party to a truck, Mr Badal reiterated that any party willing to defeat the Congress could join hands with SAD.

The two leaders said there was a consensus between the two allies that winnability would purely be the criterion while deciding the candidates from both the parties.

The BJP had contested 23 of the 117 assembly seats during the last state elections in 2002, winning only three seats. One seat was left in vain for the Bahujan Samaj Morcha, while the rest were contested by the main opposition Shiromani Akali Dal.

The two allies had already held a close-door meeting at Amritsar on July three on the seat sharing issue.

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