Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has said his party will focus on improving its electoral prospects in the southern states and the north-east in the next general elections, as part of the National Demcoratic Alliance's efforts to win more seats and wrest power from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition.
"We have had our government in Karnataka and we will try to retain the number of seats we had won last time. Our performance in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu can improve from what it was last time and efforts are going on for that. As for the north-east, four MPs won from there last time and I hope that the number will not decrease," Singh told PTI in an interview.
He was replying to a question on the NDA's prospects in the south and the north-east in the next general elections.
Many feel the party's performance in Karnataka may go down in the Lok Sabha polls due to the constant infighting in the BJP-led government in the state. This has dented the image of the party.
Singh accepted that the exit of former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa from BJP to form a new party may affect his party's performance.
"We cannot determine the quantum of loss, but even if some loss has taken place, we would try to regain it," he said.
Singh maintained that in the campaign for the 2014 general elections, his party would not just highlight the failures of the Congress-led UPA government but also emphasise on programmes that it will implement if voted to power.
"We will tell the people what all we will do if we form the government at the Centre," he said.
Singh said the Congress-led government has failed on every front.
"They have failed on the economic, security and diplomatic front. But we won't contest elections on the basis of this government's failure, we will fight the elections on political issues too," he said.
He maintained that there is a need for the BJP to make its organisational network more active and effective. The BJP president said the biggest drawback of the Congress government is that it had no single power centre.
"It has two power centers which causes all the trouble. But other political parties don't have such a mechanism. Whoever is the prime minister, he has full-fledged authority," Singh said.
He insisted that the BJP has emerged stronger in the last two decades. "If you talk of the BJP, it has become stronger than what it was two decades back, but the Congress has become weaker in this period," he claimed.
The senior BJP leader maintained that in any coalition government, regional parties have an important role and the 2014 results may throw up a similar situation.
