‘No other party except Congress and BJP exists on national level’

We are of course looking at it. These experiments have not succeeded really. Any political party, which does not have the numbers, in terms of  its members of parliament, cannot lead this country. As I say, the tail cannot wag the body, it is only the body which can wag the tail. At the national level there are two political parties – the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which have the potential to emerge as the single largest party. No other political party except these two has the 

possibility of getting more than 20-30 seats.

As far as Mamata is concerned, we fought the last election together – 2009 and Parliament assembly election, and we did fairly well. We would now be seeing the performance of TMC when it fights alone. I hope better success prevails with Mamata and she realises that we have to fight together.

As far as we are concerned, the Congress 

President has appointed a committee headed by Rahul Gandhi to look at the issues of organising campaign for 2014 election. And there’s a committee headed by AK Antony that would be looking at the issue of alliances in 2014 elections.

As far as Nitish is concerned, we have got great respect and regard for him. He has come from a secular background. The only issue is that he was the minister for railways when the Godhra incident took place. Also, at the same time he tied up with the BJP in the state and parliamentary elections. On that score, his track record has not been so good. But he is basically a secular man and the tough stand he has taken against Narendra Modi proves his secular credentials. But in Bihar we already have Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan who have been much more dependable allies. In the past, Lalu supported us even before we came to power in 2004. Therefore, the Congress party committee headed by Antony will have to take a call on that.

When it comes to Mayawati, she has a track record in forming the government with the BJP. The political ideologies are not very important as far as she is concerned. 

Yes, she is giving outside support for the UPA government, and we are grateful for that.

Mulayam Singh Yadav has come from the old socialist background, and he has taken many secular stands for which we are grateful. But we should not forget that he became the chief minister of UP because of the 

support of BJP.

It is a question of how we land up post 2014 and what the scenario is. Therefore it is about political decisions.

I don’t think it’s correct. We would rather have the elections at the stipulated time because there is no reason to pre-pone the election which will be held next year.

We would be going aggressively to get a clear-cut mandate to govern the country and to complete our agenda of a very strong, secular, socialist nation which empowers the people of this country. So, these are the issues on which we will be working because this country has not had a clear mandate since 1985. If you see today, some of our very important legislations could not be enacted due to the Parliament not being allowed to function, whether it’s right to food security, Lokpal, land acquisition and other number of important legislations. 

Therefore, we would be now appealing strongly to the people of India to give us a clear mandate to fulfill our national agenda and bring about greater changes in the governance of this country.

As far as we are concerned, Narendra Modi is the chief minister of Gujarat and that’s it, like Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan is the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh is the chief minister of Chhattisgarh. 

Now that he has come at the national level as the chairman of the campaign committee, it really does not make a difference to Congress’ prospects. Earlier in 2004 and 2009 parliamentary elections, the BJP had appointed its own chairman of campaign committees. But surprisingly, the media has given a tremendous hype this time. As far as we are concerned, Modi is not an issue.

As far as we are concerned, it doesn’t make a difference to us. He said something that is very critical of the kind of situation prevailing in the BJP where self-seeking people were dominating. And suddenly within 36 hours he 

withdrew his statement. It hits the credibility of Advani to a great extent.

Whether it will benefit us or not, we will come to know. But we are neither intrigued nor elated over this happening, because these things do happen in political parties. We will fight the BJP on the basis of its ideology, and not on its internal party politics.

They don’t seem to have clarity as far their own leaders are concerned. It is up to them to decide. We would rather put our own house in order.

Firstly, we have taken some positive steps in the last decade. Secondly, we will soon be putting up in our election manifestos what plans we have post 2014 elections. Lastly, we have a very viable, young, clean face in Rahul Gandhi, whom we would be projecting in the next elections as one of our top leaders.

Any person who was involved in any kind of corruption, be it a politician, or a bureaucrat, or a senior officer of a corporate sector, we have not let them go. We have taken strong and firm actions against all those who have had a case of corruption against them. We have been very tough as far as cracking down corruption is concerned.

We don’t want to project anyone for the post of the prime minister. Only last time, we declared Manmohan Singh as the PM, but usually Congress does not project anyone in advance.

In the assembly polls, we have a strong chance in repeating victory in Rajasthan and Delhi and in bringing Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh to the Congress fold. We are equally confident about the 2014 Lok Sabha elections too. I think we will prove all the prophets of doom wrong.

CBI has its autonomy. If you noticed it has raided a sitting Member of Parliament of the Congress party. It is taking action against an ex-minister of the party who was in charge of the coal ministry and also against Suresh Kalmadi. It has acted independently in all cases of corruption in this country.

These allegations are being made to suit their own convenience. The same BJP was elated when the CBI came up with charges against the former Union Railway Minister  Pawan Bansal. Obviously, the opposition makes shifty statements looking at the situations of the day, which are volatile, rather than maintaining consistency.