Priority to prevent Prez rule in UP, alliances possible: BJP

The BJP today said that its first priority was to prevent President’s rule in Uttar Pradesh and that it was willing to consider alliances to prevent it. “The first priority is that there will not be President’s Rule in Uttar Pradesh,” Meenakshi Lekhi, BJP spokesperson told CNN-IBN. [caption id=“attachment_235495” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The BJP has credited the possible success in the UP to party president Nitin Gadkari. Reuters”] [/caption] The party was willing to consider all possible alliance to prevent this from taking place she said. However, they would not form an alliance if not needed and were happy to sit in the opposition, Lekhi said. Another spokesperson, Nirmala Seetharaman said numbers will speak “much more than savvy analysis”. “The party campaign was not deliberately kept low key. We took issues which were not sensational…governance has to be the agenda,” Sitharaman said, adding that she would prefer to wait for final results before making an elaborate comment. To a question on whether the BJP would credit its president Nitin Gadkari for its performance, she said “absolutely” the credit will go “entirely” to him. As per the trends available, BJP has sprung a surprise by leading in around 60 seats, whereas ruling BSP was leading in 42 seats. Congress-RLD alliance was trailing in fourth place by leading in 21 seats.