By IANS,
Chandigarh : The Congress Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was no competition to its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in the upcoming polls and that the BJP’s prime minister-in-waiting L.K. Advani would have to “remain so” in future too.
“The NDA is a weak force today, deserted by its partners. It is no competition to the UPA. Advani has remained PM-in-waiting for the last 40 years. He will remain so in the future also,” union minister and Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal told reporters.
Sibal said that the Third Front floated recently was a “non-starter” right from its inception.
“The third front has no national base. The only thing to bring them together is the desire to pull themselves out of irrelevance. No one knows who is in the front and who supports whom. The Third Front has disintegrated even before its formation,” Sibal said.
Strongly condemning BJP leader Varun Gandhi, the grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, for his remarks against the Muslim community, Sibal said that he (Varun) “did not deserve to remain in politics”.
Talking about the Congress’s prospects in the coming elections, he said: “We are optimistic of winning the forthcoming polls with full majority. In fact, people want to give an absolute majority to the Congress party. We are ready to take along our alliance parties with us.”
Sibal agreed that the Congress had some issues with the Samajwadi Party and that these would be sorted out after the elections.
The Congress leader said that the Left parties would emerge as a depleted force after the general elections.
He added that the third front, of which the Left parties were a part, was neither cemented by ideology nor had a common minimum programme.