Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Lal Kishenchand Advani has convened a meeting of National Democratic Alliance chief ministers on Saturday to hold talks with them and evolve a strategy to counter the Congress campaign in next year's Lok Sabha elections.

The meeting will begin at 11 am in the morning and continue after lunch.
 
BJP chief ministers who are expected to take part in the meeting include Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Vasundhara Raje Scindia (Rajasthan), Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.
 
The alliance chief ministers who are likely to attend the meeting include Prakash Singh Badal of Punjab, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Orissa CM Navin Patnaik.
 
Addressing a press conference BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, who was elected member of Rajya Sabha in the recently held bi-annual elections, alleged that 75 farmers have committed suicide in Maharashtra after they found out about the announcement of loan wavier scheme announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram during the presentation of the Union Budget in Parliament for 2008-2009.
 
"According to the details announced by the government, the finance minister is going to make arrangements for only Rs 10,000 crore in the current financial year and rest of the Rs 50,000 crore out of Rs 60,000 crore would be distributed over the next five years. This exposes the fradulent deal offered by the UPA government to the poor farmers by the Manmohan Singh government," Javadekar charged.
 
Having done his home work, the BJP spokesperson claimed that only 20 per cent of farmers would benefit from the announcements of the finance minister. "As explained earlier, this would under no circumstances benefit those farmers who have taken loan from private moneylenders," he said.
 
He accused the government of not increasing the minimum support price of sugarcane growing farmers. "In fact the price of sugarcane remains the same as last year," the BJP spokesperson said.