Maharashtra impact: BJP’s allies seek better coordination

New Delhi: Key NDA partners are demanding more respect and better coordination from BJP at a time when Shiv Sena has severed ties with BJP in Maharashtra and at the Centre, and when the saffron party’s ties with LJP and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) look strained in Jharkhand.

The fresh demand has come from BJP’s two oldest allies — JDU in Bihar and Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab.

SAD leader and Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral said: “There was a time when no one was in alliance with BJP and at that time too Sena and SAD stood with them. It doesn’t mean that when you get absolute majority you start treating your allies as lesser partners. Everyone has self-respect, and they are leaders in their own right. Every alliance partner wishes to be treated with respect and equality.


This was the strength of Vajpayeeji and Advaniji.”

“It would have been better if BJP, JDU, LJP and others had contested elections as an alliance force in Jharkhand,” JDU secretary general KC Tyagi told ET. “It looks like there is no cohesiveness in the alliance.”

Tyagi complained that rather than having a National Democratic Alliance, it looks like BJP has different alliances with different parties.

“We don’t know what happened between Sena and BJP or (between) AJSU and BJP,” he added. “Forming a coordination committee is an old thing which we have been saying for long. But there should be a forum or platform where we can share our views both ideological and political.”