BJP dismisses poll survey on UP as 'trash'

New Delhi, Mar 28 (UNI) BJP today strongly reacted against a pre-poll survey predicting a poor third place for the party in the coming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and asserted that things were changing positively for it with every passing day.

BJP Spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad while terming the predictions of Indian Express-CNN-IBN-CSDS poll survey published today as 'trash', said a cursory reading of the 'curious' survey showed how unsure it was about its methodology, findings and conclusions. "The report is riddled with hedge clauses. I would not even be reacting on the report but for the kind of display given by the national daily," he remarked.

He said one need not go too far to ascertain the 'credibility' of this pre-election survey which had earlier predicted a clear win for Congress in Punjab and Uttarakhand elections. The emerging results had conclusively disproved its predictions as the Akali Dal-BJP combine swept polls in Punjab while the BJP wrested power from Congress in Uttarakhand. "This is their record. As far as the BJP is concerned, such false alarms were good to rid the organisation of any complacency", he remarked.

Mr Prasad, a former Law Minister in the NDA government said he failed to understand how the survey could dare to give a picture of 'neck and neck' race between ruling Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party and a large number of 'solo players' ranging from Ajit Singh to Beni Prasad Verma and the two Muslim outfits who were all capable of dividing anti-BJP votes. The Samajwadi Party, he said, was facing huge anti-incumbency factor after failed to provide decent governance to the people of the state.

When a reporter wanted to know the kind of khichdi, the BJP was coming out with in the polls, Mr Prasad reacted 'you should not foget the curative value of khichdi and reminded UP counted among the 'BIMARU' states by the economists.

In a related development the BJP, however, evaded questions about its defiant MP from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath's announcement to field about 70 candidates under Hindu Mahasabha banner. "BJP's Chief Ministerial nominee Kalyan Singh had appealed to all nationalist forces to ensure that its votes were not divided and we hope wisdom will dawn upon one and all", another BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, remarking, "Individual is not bigger than the party." UNI MCN KAS PK RN1740