Top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders will meet for a 'brainstorming' session beginning June 18 on the outskirts of Mumbai to chalk out a poll strategy for assembly elections scheduled later this year.

The meeting to be held at a training institute at Rambhau Probodhini, 40 km from Mumbai, will be attended by 100 senior leaders. It will be spread over three days and conclude on June 20.

Party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told rediff.com that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his deputy Lal Kishenchand Advani, party chief Venkaiah Naidu, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief K S Sudershan and representatives of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Swadeshi Jagran Manch will attend the meet.

BJP general secretaries and central ministers like Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh and Arun Jaitley are also expected to be present during the brainstorming session, he added. The meet will be a closed-door session.

Apart from evolving the poll strategy there will be group meetings on economic issues, political and ideological challenges and coalition politics, Naqvi said.

A senior BJP leader told rediff.com that the party leadership was still mulling over how 10,000 activists of the Sangh Parivar could be deployed in each state, both for the assembly elections as well as the general election in 2004.

On Advani's role, the leader said, "Advaniji has a massive following in both the party and the government and his followers cannot be assuaged by their mentor's second string status. After all, there has to be a contingency plan."