Agencies / New Delhi
The Pioneer
October 8, 1999
Title: BJP, allies close to 300 mark, Cong suffers setback Author: Agencies / New Delhi Publication: The Pioneer Date: October 8, 1999 The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies tonight won a comfortable majority of 293 seats for the 543-member Lok Sabha with results of six more constituencies yet to come, while Congress with 109 wins suffered a major setback falling much short of its previous tally of 141 with leads in four more seats. Of the 531 seats decided so far, BJP and its allies had won 293, Congress and its partners 131, Left parties 42 and others 64. The BJP, which has so far won 181 seats, was unlikely to improve significantly upon its previous tally of 181 with leads in only three other seats. The poll process for six Lok Sabha seats including four in Bihar, Dhubri in Assam and outer Manipur is yet to be completed because of deferment caused by floods, killing of a candidate and rescheduling of repolls, respectively. Meanwhile, RJD chief Laloo Prasad yadav lost to JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav from Madhepura while Capt Satish Sharma won the Rae Bareli seat defeating among others the new entrant of the Gandhi-Nehru family Arun Nehru to the BJP. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will invite Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to join the alliance as they had fought elections together. "We had fought the elections on the plank that Chandrababu Naidu would be Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be Prime Minister," party spokesman Venkaiah Naidu told reporters after an informal meeting of top BJP leaders here this evening. He said even though TDP was not part of nda, there was no doubt that it was supporting the NDA as part of an electoral understanding. Asked which of the allies are expected to join the government, he said "we will talk to all our partners before forming the government. Whoever supported Vajpayee government will be taken into confidence." The meeting held at the residence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was attended by Home Minister L K Advani, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, party president Kushabhau Thakre, vice-president Jana Krishnamurthy and general secretaries K N Govindacharya, Narendra Modi and Venkaiah Naidu.
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