HEADLINES POLL ARCHIVES FEEDBACK SEARCH REDIFF NEWSLINKS US EDITION NEWS DEAR REDIFF THE STATES ARCHIVES
With little at stake after both parties performed poorly in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has said that it would not insist on the National Conference staying on in the National Democratic Alliance.
"Since NC leaders had made statements about pulling out of the NDA, let them now take a stand on the issue. We won't persuade anybody to stay back in the coalition," BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu told newspersons on Friday in Hyderabad.
Attributing the rout of the NC in the J&K polls to an anti-establishment wave, Naidu said, "It is not a verdict against the NDA government at the Centre."
Explaining the setback suffered by the BJP, he said, "The seat-sharing arrangement with the Jammu State Morcha did not work in some places. Secondly, the JSM and BJP had diametrically opposite views on the trifurcation demand."
The electorate was also confused by the fact that the BJP and NC were allies at the Centre but were contesting against each other in the assembly polls, he said.
Setbacks to the BJP notwithstanding, Naidu said the conduct of the J&K polls were a victory for India and its democracy and defeat for Pakistan and its evil designs. "These elections have proved beyond doubt that J&K is an inalienable part of India. We are happy with the peaceful and successful conduct of the polls," he said.
He congratulated the people of J&K for braving militants' bullets and 'Pakistan's desperate attempts to disrupt the polls' to register an estimated 44 per cent turnout.
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