Early polls likely in India

The BJP is holding a four-day brainstorming session in Bombay from June 17 and the party's top policy-making forum the national executive meets early next month to finalise the strategies for next year's parliamentary polls as well as elections to legislatures in four states later this year.

The Congress had earlier this month held a meeting of chief ministers of 15 states ruled by the party in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and the party top leadership is meeting again in Shimla, the former summer capital of the British rulers, early July. The purpose is the same: frame electoral strategies.

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If indications emanating from BJP central headquarters here are anything to go by, a majority view in the party favours February next year as the time for fresh general elections although the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ends in October 2004.

February, however, could the BJP choice only if the party can wrest power from Congress in three of the four states which go to assembly polls later this year. These states are Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Chattisgarhall ruled by Congress.

The assessment in BJP is that if the party does succeed in winning in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh assembly polls, it will give boost to its prospects in parliamentary elections in February, said t he sources.

There is a section in BJP, party sources say, which would like advancing fresh parliamentary elections later this year to coincide with the assembly polls in the four states.

This section feels that BJP can in capitalise on a perceived anti-incumbency factor in the three states ruled by Congress to help it retain power at the national level. Besides, Congress and other opposition parties may not get time to regroup and work out arrangements to prevent split in anti-BJP votes, said the sources.

But this suggestion does not appear to have found much favour in BJP where another section feels that the party's allies might not be prepared for such an early exercise because most of them are now plagued by sharp factionalism and fear a heavy anti-incumbency factor, the sources said.

Trinamool Congress, for example, may not like to rush to fresh parliamentary polls later this year especially after its disastrous performance in recent Panchayat polls in West Bengal and its defeat in two bye-elections in the state last week.

Parliamentary polls later this year does not appear to suit BJP also as it needs more time to firm up fresh alliances, seat-sharing accords with present allies and put in place tie-ups with new friends, party sources said.