Claiming the Bharatiya Janata Party as the "mother of alliance politics" in the country, prime ministerial candidate LK Advani said on Tuesday that the saffron party knew how to maintain "coalition dharma".
Obliquely referring to the collapse of 11-year-old BJP-Biju Janata Dal alliance in Orissa, Advani told a poll rally at Cuttack that the party has been forming alliance and practising coalition dharma since 1952. Stating that the first alliance named as National Democratic Front was formed by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in 1952 after the first Lok Sabha election, he said there were 31 MPs in the front and Jan Sangha had only three members in the Lok Sabha. Besides the Akali Dal, Orissa's Ganatantra Party was also a member of the NDF created to break the monopoly of Congress, the BJP leader said.
Maintaining that BJP-BJD alliance was a systematic process to keep Congress out of power, Advani said the partner party must not have any trouble with BJP while in the coalition. Though state BJP leadership was all out attacking BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik for breaking the decade-old alliance, Advani on other hand did not take of Patnaik or hold him responsible for the break up.
