The allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on Friday said that they were willing to accept the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee despite the recent developments in BJP's national executive meet in Mumbai.
"It (the recent developments in the BJP's national executive in Mumbai) is the BJP's internal matter. As far as our party is concerned, we continue to accept Vajpayeeji's leadership of the NDA," senior Akali Dal leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa told rediff.com
"The developments pertaining to Vajpayeeji in Mumbai have been amicably settled. So there is no occasion to warrant questions cropping up regarding the former prime minister's leadership of our alliance," Dhindsa added.
Nationalist Trinamool Congress leader and former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Agitok Sangma expressed similar sentiments.
"Of course, we continue to be a part of the NDA under Vajpayeeji's leadership. What happened in the BJP's national executive in Mumbai is its own affairs on which external interference is neither warranted or called for," he pointed out.
Sangma, however, said he formulating his party's furture strategy with activists.
Vajpayee had come under considerable flak by the constituents of the Sangh Parivar, chiefly the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, by openly demanding the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Vajpayee told a television channel that the BJP lost in Gujarat because of Modi's failure to contain the riots in the wake of the Godhra incident.
Telugu Desam Party Parliamentary Party chief Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu contended that his party considered itself a part of the NDA under Vajpayee's leadership.
"We are opposed to communal politics and are committed towards safeguarding the country's communal fabric. But we remain part of the NDA whose leadership is under A B Vajpayee and that is that," he said.
Janata Dal (United) Parliamentary Party leader Sharad Yadav said there was no reason why his party should not be a part of the NDA. "We are part of the NDA and that is where the matter stands," he said.
He did not wish to comment on developments in Mumbai, underlining that it was the BJP's internal matter.
Yadav has just been nominated to the Rajya Sabha after losing the parliamentary election in Madhepura in Bihar where the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav gave him a drubbing.
