Monday, September 12 2005 20:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be backing candidates who stood for development in the wards where the party did not have candidates, party leader in charge of civic polls C K Padmanabhan said today (Sept 12, 2005).

Addressing reporters here, he said BJP was contesting in only 12,000 segments out of the 20,500 wards in the coming local body elections. In the remaining wards, the party would openly declare its support to a candidate after evaluating the winning chances and development perspective.

He said this did not mean that the BJP's votes were for sale. Those raking up the Emergency days for campaign in civic polls instead of raising development issues were starved of relevant topics, he said.

Padmanabhan said the civic polls were not an arena for discussing politics and parties should concentrate on developmental issues.