New Delhi: Expelled BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati today said she was looking at the BJP-led NDA as a national forum for taking up issues like fight against Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and empowerment of women of backward castes. Ms Bharti, who formed Bharatiya Jan Shakti after she was expelled from the BJP, told newspersons here that she expected a reply from senior BJP leader and chairman of the parliamentary party L K Advani on her party's request to be part of the NDA. She had campaigned for Mr Advani and the NDA in the last Lok Sabha polls outside Madhya Pradesh.

''I am waiting for a response from Advaniji. He asked to me to wait for the new BJP president to take over,'' she said.

She said she wanted to join the NDA as she had found it hard for a small outfit like Bharatiya Janshakti Party to make impact outside her state and a national forum was needed to have countrywide impact. She, however, refused to comment on the changes that had taken place in the BJP as it was an 'internal matter' of another party but welcomed the elevation of Ms Sushma Swaraj as Leader of the Opposition. It is a new step towards women empowerment, she said. ''Seeking political alliances is a compulsion in today's politics,'' she remarked.

Replying to a question, she said she had both personal and political relations with both Mr Advani and Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee but now it was the question of relations with issues.

Ms Bharati said her party was only three year old outfit and it would require about 20 years to be a strong organisation to make an impact and there were several pressing issues like problems concerning SEZs that need to be stiffly resisted and the country could not afford such a long gestation. Giving an example, she said, her party was strongly opposed to the Women's Reservation Bill for Parliament and state legislatures in its present form. To a question if she would rejoin the BJP if invited, she replied ''it is good for me and the BJP to maintain separate identities.'' ''Today, I feel free to take decisions and the line on Women Reservation Bill, which did not provide for reservation to women from backward caste, could not have been taken if she were in the BJP,'' she said.