Bangalore, May 15: The Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Shakti will have the same alliance that worked well in the Lok Sabha elections, for the coming by-elections to seven seats for the Assembly.While BJP will field candidates in four seats, Lok Shakti will be fielding in three. Jointly briefing newsmen here on Thursday, BJP president B S Yediyurappa and Lok Shakti president Jeevaraj Alva said BJP will contest in Davanagere, Uttarahalli, Bagalkot and Hunsur and the Lok Shakti will field candidates in Baindur, Balloli and Mandya. Both the leaders declared that the respective party workers at the grassroot-level would strive for victory of the BJP-Lok Shakti combined candidates.Alva said the by-polls would decide the future of the ruling Janata Dal. ``It will bring an end to the mess the ruling party has created, its stupidity in raising the price of milk and other issues which have exposed its bankruptcy'', he said.Both Alva and Yediyurappa tried to dispel the criticism in the media that if only BJPhad allotted one vote less to its candidate, Mukya Mantri Chandru, the Lok Shakti candidate Ugrappa, who lost by 0.032 votes, would have won. They said the absence of one legislator and one vote being declared invalid, the vote quotient changed and even if BJP had allotted all its spillover votes to Ugrappa, he would have lost.Alva said the criticism that Lok Shakti national president was in Cairo and the state president (Alva) was in Delhi on the day of voting was unfair. There was no discord between BJP and Lok Shakti and that in spite of best efforts and calculations, the Lok Shakti candidate lost.
