Patna: Terming the upcoming Assembly elections in four states as the last trial of strength between the only two national parties before the next Lok Sabha poll, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 24 said it would go alone in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi.

"The BJP has decided to go it alone in the Assembly polls in the four states in what is going to be the last and crucial trial of strength between the BJP and Congress – before the next Lok Sabha elections," BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan told reporters on April 24.

Asserting that the BJP was all set to return to power in the four states, he said the people of those states were yearning for a change as the Congress governments there had failed to fulfil even their most genuine aspirations.

"These elections are of vital importance to us not only because they are the last test of strength before the 2004 poll, but also because these are the states BJP once ruled and also because most of the Members of Parliament (MPs) there belong to our party or have won with our backing," he said.

The BJP leader claimed that preliminary assessment of the ground situation in the four states gave strong indication of anti-incumbency factor as the Congress governments there paid scant attention to development.

"Our victories in these states will make National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) task of storming back to power at the Centre once again much easier and I am confident that Atal Behari Vajpayee would become Prime Minister for a record fourth time, a record that will be nearly impossible to break," he said.

PTI