BJP confident of tie ups in Seemandhra, Telangana ?

  After having stitched up an alliance in Tamil Nadu, BJP today expressed confidence of entering into tie-ups with regional parties in Seemandhra and Telangana and claimed that NDA now represents the real federal character of India.

Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley recalled NDA's transformation from a three-party alliance to a 24-party grouping under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's leadership and said the BJP-led combine was moving in that direction.

After Tamil Nadu, I expect some positive outcome of the alliance talks in both Seemandhra and Telangana. If that were to happen, the only states where BJP would be without any alliance are Kerala, Odisha and West Bengal....The NDA today represents the real federal character of India, he said.

Jaitley took a dig at Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his pragmatic decision to not contest the Lok Sabha election as, he said, a politically isolated Congress is unlikely to win any seat in Tamil Nadu. The Narendra Modi factor, he wrote on his blog, is adding to the party's strength and it has succeeded in expanding its support base across the country, including Tamil Nadu. This combination (in Tamil Nadu) is capable of transforming the bilateral fight (AIADMA vs DMA) into three- cornered fight.

Not only is the vote share of the NDA alliance going to be very significant, the fact that it is a Modi-led alliance is adding to its strength, he said. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had added significantly to the UPA numbers both in 2004 and 2009, he said, and both the states had tilted the balance in favour of UPA. This time the biggest setback to the UPA will come from these two states.

- PTI