BHUBANESWAR, JAN 20: For Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Kanshi Ram a snap poll is around the corner. This emanates from his claim that he has ensured the allies keep fighting. ``I have ensured infighting between the alliance partners and the BJP. Vajpayee would not be able to sustain the pulls and pressure of his coalition partners,'' Kanshi Ram told The Indian Express here on Tuesday.``I am for mid-term elections. They give us opportunity to grow,'' said the BSP chief. He claimed that the BJP's poll debacle was due to his party's unconditional support to the Congress in those states that went to Assembly polls.Predicting that the snap poll might be held around November, Kanshi Ram felt no partner of the BJP was prepared to sail with the saffron brigade this time after its humiliation in the recent Assembly elections. The Centre has become shaky after this, he maintained.Kanshi Ram, who has been lying low for quite some time, said his party's support to the Congress was only to defeat theBJP. ``The sooner this government goes, the better it is for the backward classes. The misrule of BJP is costlier than a number of mid-term polls.''Asked whether he wanted the political instability at the Centre to continue, Kanshi Ram replied in the positive. He said his party has become the fourth largest national party as per the total percentage of votes polled in the last Lok Sabha elections after the Congress, BJP and CPI(M). The BSP leader said that if there was a mid-term elections today, his party would increase its vote percentage from 4.7 to more than 10.He said that his party would win at least 50 seats in the next polls and it would field candidates in about 250 seats in the northern states, mainly to defeat the Congress. The BSP leader, however, said that Congress must remain in contest, else its upper caste votes would go to the BJP.He said, his poll strategy would be to reduce the present strength of BJP and Congress in the next mid-term elections and pull down another unstablegovernment for one more mid-term polls. Kanshi Ram is hopeful that in this second mid-term elections, his party would manage to get at least 200 seats and a vote percentage of about 20 per cent.The BSP leader, however, said that his party's immediate goal was to increase its vote bank and overcome the CPI(M). ``Until then, the BSP would maintain a low profile,'' he said. Commenting on the current political scenario, Kanshi Ram said that the days of alliance government were over. He said that his party's bitter experiences with the Samajwadi Party, Congress and BJP in Uttar Pradesh had taught him many lessons. ``We were weak then. In the coming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, we can form the government on our own,'' he maintained.On the proposed Third Front by Rashtriya Janata Dal president, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the BSP leader said it can only become a fourth front. ``After the Congress and BJP, we are going to be the most powerful party in the nextelections,'' he maintained.
