BJP wants long-term alliance with JD(S)

After its coalition government proved majority comfortably, the BJP said it was willing to have a "long-term alliance" with JD(S).

After its coalition government proved majority comfortably, the BJP on Thursday said it was willing to have a "long-term alliance" with its partner JD(S) in Karnataka.

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BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu also told a press meet that they would make the new coalition a "successful" one.

"We want to work on the basis of a long-term alliance with the JD(S)," senior Naidu said after presiding over the party's legislature party meeting in Bangalore, a day after the BJP-JD(S) combine won the vote of confidence in the assembly.

Two days ago, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had retracted his statement over stretching the coalition arrangements to fighting coming polls in the state and left the issue to be decided by his father JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda.

On this, Naidu said, "Kumaraswamy has proposed to us that they want to have a long-term friendship. We are happy with the proposal and are willing to work together on a long-term basis."

However, he refused to elaborate the nature of long-term alliance the parties were looking at, saying those issues would be decided at an appropriate time.

The BJP would finalise a common agenda to guide the functioning of the coalition government and set up two coordination committees at the government level and party by this month end.