Chennai, Mar 9 (IANS): The BJP is planning to conduct extensive and in-depth surveys in poll-bound Puducherry and has commissioned a national level agency for the same.

The party's national leadership has commissioned the agency for a weekly analysis on the political position of Puducherry covering the social, economical and political aspects. The survey will also undertake the popularity of the candidates as well as the issues which are being highlighted in the campaign in the run up to the Assembly elections in the Union Territory on April 6.

BJP state president Swaminthanan told IANS, "The state leadership of the party is in no way related to the survey, and the national leadership has always commissioned such surveys in Puducherry. We get feedbacks from our grass-root workers and the survey reports are generally matched to the reports coming from the party cadres."

The BJP is taking the Puducherry Assembly elections as a prestigious battle following the resignation of the V. Narayanaswamy-led Congress government, days before the announcement of the elections. The Congress had alleged that the BJP was responsible for the fall of its government, accusing the saffron party of engineering a split in the Congress.

The BJP-AIADMK combine is contesting 14 seats in the Assembly elections, while its ally, the All India NR Congress of former Puducherry Chief minister N. Rangaswamy, will contest 16 seats.

A highly-placed national level leader of the BJP told IANS on condition of anonymity, "We have indeed commissioned a national level psephology group to carry out the survey. This does not mean that we are dancing to the tune of the survey team, nor are we into detailed studies of the feedbacks from these survey teams to alter our strategies for the elections."

The BJP leadership has already paid a huge sum of money to the concerned agency and wants this to be conducted secretly as even the district level leaders of the party do not have any knowledge of this survey.

The survey is meant for an internal study, and the party's national leadership can alter its plans and programmes as the election campaign progresses.