Saturday, January 7 2006 14:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (Jan 07, 2006) turned down calls from members of its Orissa unit to pull out of its alliance with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal (BJD) over Monday's police firing on tribal protesters, saying issues would be resolved through talks with the main coalition partner.

Orissa BJP chief Jual Oram met his party's national president Rajnath Singh here with a five-page party report on Monday's events and on the state government's handling of their fallout.

"Some of our MLAs and MPs want us to pull out of the coalition", Oram told sources after meeting Singh.

However, the party, which suffered a rout at the Centre in the 2004 general elections, ruled out withdrawal of support, but called for greater interaction between coaltion partners.

"This has been a successful coalition. The issue over the Monday incident has been resolved, as Rajnath Singh has spoken to the Chief Minister about the party demands regarding compensation for the victims. Both parties will be working towards strengthening the coalition," party spokesman Prakash Javadekar told reporters.

He, however, underlined the importance of regular meetings between the allies as part of coalition politics.

"Both parties should be meeting time and again to discuss and resolve issues", Javadekar remarked.

A standoff erupted between the BJP and the BJD after police opened fire on protesters at the site of a planned Tata Steel plant at Kalinganagar on Monday, killing 12 tribals.

With half of its 32 MLAs in the 147-seat Assembly being tribals themselves, the BJP's state unit then threatened to walk out of its alliance with the BJD.