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BJP to contest over 325 seats in Uttar Pradesh

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday announced it would contest more than 325 seats out of the 403 seats in the February polls to the Uttar Pradesh assembly, and field candidates in all the 70 constituencies in Uttaranchal.

The party ruled out raising the Ram temple issue in the polls on its own while asserting that national security would be one of the key issues in all the states going to polls.

"BJP is fully geared to face the elections. We will be contesting over 325 seats in UP and leave the remaining to the allies, besides accommodating the Rashtriya Lok Dal led by Union Minister Ajit Singh," party spokesman and general secretary Sunil Shastri said, a day after the announcement of the poll schedule by the Election Commission.

Asked about the possibility of a tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party, he said, "There is nothing like that."

While the party would contest all the 70 seats in Uttaranchal, it would fight the polls in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) in Punjab.

"The BJP state unit had a meeting on Wednesday with the SAD and the seats would be finalised after further meetings," Shastri said.

In Manipur, the party would have alliance with other parties such as Samata, he said.

Election committees of the respective state party units would meet soon besides briefing the party national executive meeting on December 29, Shastri said, adding the central election committee would meet thereafter and finalise the list of candidates.

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