You spoke of Congress ideology, etc, earlier. What's it about the party that appeals to you?
We can't have regressive ideologies. I really think the Congress is the only party that cuts across. India is a heterogeneous country. We have to have a party that cuts across all these differences. And Congress is that party.

So how do you explain your party's gradually diminishing appeal to the voter?
There's a tendency among a lot of the Congress' opponents who have for years portrayed us in wrong light. One very good example I can give [is] Bofors, how they fooled the public for 20 years about Rajiv Gandhi. And now, the Delhi high court has acquitted him. But the Congress lost many elections because of that issue. But Congress is a progressive party, we don't keep reminding the public 'Bangaru, Bangaru', and here the man has been caught taking a bribe in public, and he was the party president [former BJP president Bangaru Laxman was caught accepting a bribe in 2000 in the Tehelka expose and resigned his post].

But that doesn't explain why your party's traditional voters left you. Obviously, something is, or was very wrong with it.
The Congress party may have taken decisions in the past that were not right. Definitely. Every party makes mistakes. But today the public is asking for the Congress. A lot of people are saying fine, even if there is something about the BJP that we like, their regressive ideologies, [Gujarat Chief Minister] Narendra Modi, their policy of ignoring secularism, these are things that people are questioning.

Today the Congress is presenting a front that has fundamental values. In its manifesto the party is targeting youth, there is a very strong emphasis on public-private partnership in the areas of infrastructure, development of cities. The Congress is a party that can offer, as I said, it can be a bridge. This is the only party that is going out and saying, we are the party of the country. The Congress' vote share may have come down but people have realized that the other parties don't deliver. Parties that are communal, parties that are focused on one particular ideology, are not delivering.

Also see: Saluting a Star

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