BJP ready for mid-term poll

New Delhi, Aug 23: Claiming that the UPA Government at the Centre would not complete its full term, the BJP today asked its Members of Parliament to be ready for mid-term polls.

The call was given by former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, while addressing the BJP Parliamentary party meeting this morning.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said earlier the people and the political parties were of the view that this government would last its full term. But in view of the sudden change in the political environment in the past few days, everybody was anticipating mid-term elections.

''I will ask all of you to go back to your constituency after the Monsoon session is over and galvanise the whole cadre and machinery to face the election,'' he said.

Mr Advani said, ''Whether the Leftists withdraw support or not, but elections before the full term of the present government is a certainty.'' Addressing newspersons, BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra claimed the coalition government run by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 1998 to 2004 was a classic example of a model coalition, saying that the present UPA government where the Congress and the Communists had totally different ideologies and divergent of view on many issues. They were together only for their anti-BJP stance, he said.

In reply to a question, Mr Malhotra clarified that the BJP was opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal as it considered the deal was ''not in the interest of the country'', unlike the Communists who has always been ''anti-US''.

He said the other issue which came up at the meeting was the Government's move to demolish the historic Ram Setu for implementing the Setusamundaram Project. He said the members expressed serious concern over the government not paying attention to their request to change the alignment of the shipping canal project to protest the mythical bridge.

The meeting it described the Government's move as ''anti-Hindu'' and said the should be prepared to face consequences if any damage was done to Ram Setu, he said.

UNI