Friday, March 10 2006 18:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: The list of BJP candidates for the May 8 Tamil Nadu assembly polls was expected to be finalized by March 20, party state president C P Radhakrishnan said today(Mar 10,2006).

The finalised list would be sent to Delhi for approval and the party High Command would announce it formally, he told reporters here.

Radhakrishnan also announced that an election cell, manifesto committee, finance committee and a negotiation committee headed by S Thirunavukkarasar, H Raja, M N Sugumaran Nambiyar and K N Lakshmanan respectively have been constituted.

He said at present the party has decided to field candidates in all the 234 assembly constituencies. However, the party was talking to a number of other parties, including Janata Party for an electoral tie-up.

Therefore, a final list was expected to come on or after March 20 only, he said adding the manifesto, which would give emphasis to 'river water linking project' was also expected at the same time.

Referring to DMK President M Karunanidhi's remarks on the Varanasi bomb blasts, Radhakrishnan claimed that 'instead of condemning it, he (Karunanidhi) is justifying the act by bringing in Ayodhya issue'.

Yesterday, in a poem published in DMK party organ 'Murasoli' condemning the Varanasi bomb blasts, Karunanidhi criticised the BJP for 'seeking to derive political mileage from the incident'.

When asked why he was not condemning AIADMK, which hadalso not said anything about the incident, he said "Those who are not condemning the incident are themselves condemnable".