Chennai: Irked by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) sharing a platform with Congress for August 22's state-wide protests against filing of cases against DMK, Congress and Communist leaders for "instigating" the recent Tamil Nadu government employees strike, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on August 21 said it was against the "coalition dharma".

"The sharing of platform by the DMK, a partner of the NDA government at the centre, with the Congress for the stir is against coalition dharma, though there is no alliance now between the BJP and the DMK but only sharing of power at the Centre", BJP national secretary, L Ganesan, said at the weekly press conference.

Asked how long the BJP was going to ''tolerate'' this kind of attitude by the DMK, Ganesan merely said, ''as long as DMK accepts the leadership of Vajpayee''.

The no-confidence motion moved by Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha early this week had highlighted the unity in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and its strength and exposed the chinks in the Congress Party.

Answering a question on the Central government's plan to bring forward a Bill to ban cow slaughter, Ganesan said the move was very dear to the BJP even from its Jan Sangh days. BJP would always discuss with its partners those issues that were not part of the national agenda of governance, he added.

PTI