There are two issues concerning the voters. One, is the mismanagement of economy by the UPA. Other issue is the softness in handling national security. On both these issues there is disillusionment against the UPA. On the issue of security the NDA is generally perceived as strong; also, we have a good track record of management of economy during the NDA regime.

One natural advantage of the UPA's management is going to the non-UPA and non-Congress parties. The only group whose record is worse than the UPA is the Left bloc. The UPA will gain in only two states that belong to Left parties and broadly lose elsewhere. The Left keeps their morale high that they are ethical and they have good governance but still, the unpopular UPA will lose everywhere except in Left-ruled states.

We believe in most states the BJP and NDA's other parties stand to gain. In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh where the BJP is weak, the predominant regional parties will gain provided they are anti-Congress. That makes us the front-runner. The UPA is receding backwards.

But your campaign against security and economy has not caught the people's imagination.

Don't underestimate the issue of economy. In rural areas the plight of farmers, lack of employment in non-agricultural sectors, food prices and inability of the UPA to respond to the slowdown in the economy are matters of concern. You see, there was arrogance within the UPA that they have a dream team of economists. When they sucked out liquidity from the market the recession came almost to my doorstep. I think they have proved their incompetence.

Second, job losses and salary cuts are hurting a very large section of the economy. The middle class is completely disillusioned. As far as security issues are concerned, by talking of Kandahar you don’t answer your own record. The Kandahar situation was, undoubtedly, a very difficult situation for any government to handle.

Kandahar had no win-win option so the government took the option of saving 170 passengers. We thought that was the better one. But, our bona fides in tackling security has never been in doubt because we have never linked security with vote bank politics. The Congress has always linked it to its vote banks.

Image: Taliban militia head towards the hijacked Indian Airlines plane at Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan, December 30, 1999. The crisis was defused when India released three terrorists -- Masood Azhar, Omar Ahmed Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar -- in exchange for the passengers. Photograph: Reuters.

Also see: The secret of Shivraj Singh Chauhan's success | India Votes 2009

Back

|

Next