By IANS,
Bhopal : Claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge as the single largest party in the general elections and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads will be the single largest coalition, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj Friday said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had now been reduced to an “Unlimited Prime Ministers Alliance”.
Admitting that all political parties and coalitions in the country were currently in a state of disarray, Swaraj told reporters that the NDA was still the best placed among them.
“The BJP did suffer a setback when the BJD (Biju Janata Dal) parted ways with it in Orissa,” but this has been “offset” by the fact that the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, the Asom Gana Parishad in Assam and the Rashtriya Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh “had come with the NDA”, Swaraj maintained.
The BJP leader, who is the party candidate from the Vidisha parliamentary constituency in Madhya Pradesh and also the party’s election incharge for Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, said she was of the view that the NDA was among the best placed because of several factors, including the fact that the UPA has now been “reduced” to an “Unlimited Prime Ministers Alliance”.
“There is no dearth of prime ministerial aspirants both in the Congress and the UPA. Many leaders of the UPA, including (ministers) Sharad Pawar, Lalu Yadav and even Ram Vilas Paswan, have already expressed their desire to occupy the top post,” she said, adding that in the NDA, it was very clear among the alliance partners that who their prime ministerial candidate would be.
On the prospects of the Third Front, Swaraj said: “It is still a non-starter. Sometimes (Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister) Mayawati punctures it and sometimes (AIADMK leader) Jayalalitha or anyone else”.