Citing lack of time for campaign for the coming assembly election in West Bengal, Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday urged the Election Commission to defer the election schedule. Its ally Trinamool Congress has, however, welcomed it.

"Our party wants the election to be deferred by two to three weeks, as we will get very little time for campaigning," Tathagata Roy, state BJP president told reporters.

The five-phase election is scheduled to start on April 17 and end on May 8.

Stating that his party wanted reasonable time for campaigning, Roy said they would shortly write to the EC, requesting it to defer the election. He hoped that other political parties would also agree to this.

On the party's poll alliance with Trinamool Congress, he said seat sharing talks were now on. He could not give
any timeframe for the announcement of BJP's candidate list, he added.

He said that BJP would hold a rally in Kolkata on March 11, in which party bigwigs like L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, and Arun Jaitley would be present. TC leader Mamata Banerjee would also be invited.

When told that the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led ruling Left Front has already announced its candidate list, he said it would hardly give the Marxists any added advantage. To a question, he said that BJP would have a separate manifesto for the ensuing election.