Congress leaders confident of victory

New Delhi, March 26 (IANS) Highlighting the achievements of the UPA government and portraying the BJP as a party good only at creating hype, top Congress leaders Wednesday expressed confidence that the party will emerge victorious in the Lok Sabha polls.

At a function here to release the party manifesto, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party vice president Rahul Gandhi spoke about the Congress emerging victorious in the battle ahead though several poll surveys have predicted a lead for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.

The Lok Sabha elections will begin next month and the Congress leaders sought to energise the party rank and file for the crucial battle.

Rahul Gandhi challenged the perception that the BJP was most likely to win the polls and said: "This balloon will explode."

He said the BJP's claims were akin to the "India Shining" ad blitz it carried out ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections where the party lost to the Congress.

"When it comes to perception, the 'India Shining' campaign was a brilliant campaign. Everyone, including you, was convinced that the BJP was winning. The BJP has the ability to carry out India Shining campaigns... I am sure this balloon too will explode," Gandhi said.

"When the results come, you will be surprised," he added.

Rahul Gandhi said he had a "slight" understanding of the ground reality in Uttar Pradesh. "This balloon is going to burst in UP 100 percent, not 90 percent."

To a question about the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Gandhi referred to him as an individual and said the BJP's ideology was "exclusionary".

"It is (an ideology) of making people fight with each other. It will hurt the country. Every Congressman will fight to defeat this ideology," he said.

Gandhi also sought to counter the impression that the Congress was not finding allies whereas the BJP was gaining friends.

"A large number of parties which supported the NDA are not with them now," he said.

He also defended the party's decision to replace its candidate Narendra Rawat selected through primaries in Vadodara.

Modi is contesting from Vadodara and the Congress has now fielded party general secretary Madhusudan Mistry against him.

Rahul Gandhi said the primaries was an "extremely powerful idea".

Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, slammed the BJP for targeting him constantly.

Asked about the corruption controversies during his term, the prime minister said: "The BJP felt I was a weak PM and in the face of criticism, I will run away. I proved them wrong."

He said corruption was an issue in a developing economy and efforts have been made to curb it.

"There will be a Congress government which will answer needs and aspirations of our people," he said.

Manmohan Singh also spoke about the Gujarat model of development flaunted by the BJP, and said the Congress model of development talks of the need to provide lasting solutions to poverty.

He also reeled out statistics to say that the performance of the UPA in its two terms was better than that of the NDA.

Sonia Gandhi said she did not have much faith in poll surveys and asserted that the election will not be about just programmes, policies or economy.

"This election is important to keep constitutional fabric of the country intact. It is the time to fight to protect our rich tradition of unity in diversity. We will fight for unity and not uniformity."

"I am confident we will do well," she said.

Sonia Gandhi also defended her party's decision to field Ashok Chavan in the polls despite corruption allegations against him.