NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is confident that the voters would give a decisive verdict in the coming elections to the Lok Sabha, “I ‘don’t believe it is going to be a hung Parliament,” Rao told a group of journalists in an informal chat at his residence. “My worry was: will we lose in the South. But don’t think so; We’ll eyecup in the South) and there will be nations in UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and West Bengal, In Bengal there is a strong Congress wave and we will profit by, it” Rao said.
“The media shy Rao is trying to make amends for his lack of accessibility in the last five years by going in for “‘interaction” with media persons at various levels! Three weeks before elections. :
He called a group of editors last week, and, it was now the tum of middle level journalists to spend an hour with him over’ *Umpa’ and soup.
Rao was in form as he fielded questions on every subject. The familiar pout was) missing as he cracked jokes or deflected. Inconvenient questions with quips, Atone. Stage, he referred to the “list of Mulays Singh,” when talking about corruption as. As sure ‘At another point, he remarked that had’ the PCC chiefs not been given tickets, “they would not have done any work. ““Inés Jo fayeda miina tha woh mil gaya.” He was metering a question on whether the party had violated its own rules to go tome of them tickles, At the end, when asked if he had finished his novel, RI retorted; “I am now going back to complete my manifesto,”: ‘The Prime Minister saw the coming election as “more or less a two-party fight except in one or two states.” He perceived the electoral bare as one between the ‘Congress and the BJP “more so now than in the past.” Kao did not think corruption would be an’ issue in the coming elections. “If there ‘was corruption on one side, it would have. Been different. “But people feel it is so pervasive that something would have to be done by all.”
‘Charge sheeting someone did not necessarily amount to condemnation in advance, he said, “We had to make some arrange~ ment so that they (the ministers) were not completely neither condemned nor exonerated advance.” After all, public life was not made in a day, the Prime Minister emphasized.
‘Though Rao dismissed the challenge to: tha Congress AIADMK alliance posed by the Moopanar DMK combine saying that the alliance vote was intact and that the recent events in Tamil Nadu would have no impact in other states he was obviously concerned about it.
‘When he asked if those like Arjun Singh and Scindia would cut into the Congress: votes, Autoreplied, “Sabke votes kath rahe hain His confidence stemmed from the belief that in Lok Sabha elections, unlike the: Saambh s, the people would for actability at the center “For these teas people realize that the return to the Congress is necessary. This is not stale: election. It is not unreasonable of me to expect this.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 17, 1996
