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BSP to contest on all Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat

March 03, 2009 17:18 IST
Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party will contest on all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, party's state general secretary, Nalin Bhatt said in Vadodara on Tuesday.

Bhatt told PTI that the question of alliance with any other political party or supporting the candidate of the Third Front in the state does not arise as the party has decided to contest for all the seats in the state.

When reminded about the BSP's experiment in Gujarat assembly elections in 2007 in which it lost to all 166 seats it contested on, Bhatt said it served the purpose of expanding the base of the party in the state as it had secured 5.72 lakh of total votes cast.

It amounted to 2.26 per cent of total voting, he added.

"The BSP, if comes to power, would frame economic policies for the betterment of all sections of the society and introduce quotas in private sector for SCs/STs and OBCs, as well as economically weaker sections of the upper castes," Bhatt said.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress and their allies may appear as different parties, but when it comes to BSP they all are one," Bhatt said, adding these parties want to keep BSP at bay.

"They do not want the party to gain power at the Centre," Bhatt said.

When asked whether Mayawati would campaign for the party candidates, Bhatt said it would be decided in few days.

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