We'll finalise alliance in 10 days: Ila Ganesan

Madurai: The NDA alliance for the 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly election will be finalised within 10 days, according to senior BJP leader Ila Ganesan. He said that the party is talking to its allies.

When it was pointed out that some erstwhile allies like PMK and DMDK are no more in the NDA, he said so far only the People Welfare Front has decided not to ally with the NDA. Their (PWF) sole aim was to divide the nearly 20 per cent vote they secured in the previous Lok Sabha election.

“But their arithmetic is wrong because they would only divide the vote bank of the Dravidan parties,” Ganesan told reporters here on Monday before he attended a meeting of party workers for the election.

Apart from PWF, all other political parties are still open to talks for electoral alliance for the Assembly election, he said.

“Our talks with DMDK, PMK and other political parties who allied with us in Lok Sabha election are progressing in the right direction,” he said.

When queried on PMK CM candidate Anbumani Ramdoss’ recent statement that BJP should accept their leadership to fight the state election, he said that Anbumani might have made such a statement to satisfy the aspirations of his party cadres.

“The strength and weakness of any political party will be known only after the announcement of election results. We can judge it only by taking into account the number of MLAs won by each party and the vote percentage they secured in the election,” he observed.

Paramaters followed by political parties for finialising alliance for the Assembly election are entirely different from parameters for Parliament election and it is also similar with the voting pattern of people, Ganesan pointed out.

For Lok Sabha election, regional parties would aspire to ally with national parties, but this was not the case with Assembly election. “We need to listen to the aspirations of the regional parties and give them sufficient time to arrive at a conclusion,” he said.

When asked about BJP leader Subramanian Swamy pitching for DMK, DMDK and BJP alliance, Ganesan said that he has high regard for Swamy. “Only DK leader Veeramani has to worry about it,” he said sarcastically.

Ganesan also ridiculed the TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan’s statement asking Rahul Gandhi to contest for CM post in the state.

He also observed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking all steps to safeguard the rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka.