A week prior to its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's first rally in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it was not too keen on building alliance in the State ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“We are not open to aligning with parties that have been discredited,” BJP national general secretary Muralidhar Rao told The Hindu in Lucknow on Sunday.
While the possibilities of a BJP-Samajwadi Party (SP) alliance are considered next to nil, Mr. Rao said that the BJP was also not keen at building alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has supported the saffron party in the past.
However, Mr. Rao also said that the BJP would prove its detractors wrong and gain strong allies nationally, not only post-poll but also pre-poll to hit the magic number of 272 seats.
The BJP has 10 Lok Sabha seats in UP.
Earlier talking to journalists, Mr. Rao said that the Gujarat government's ‘Run For Unity’ had attracted around 1,50,000 participants from the State. The marathon is viewed as the BJP's attempt to galvanize its cadres and build electoral support for the general elections. Mr. Rao, however, contended that Run For Unity was not to be viewed politically.
