BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Kamal Nath reiterated on Thursday that the Congress will form the next government in Madhya Pradesh by winning 140-plus assembly seats.
Interacting with journalists in Bhopal after a meeting with all 229 Congress candidates, the former union minister exuded confidence about forming the next government in the state with impressive majority.
A day before the exit polls are out for the assembly polls in five states, Nath claimed that he had received calls from those who conduct exit polls and has been told by them that the Congress will be back in power after a gap of 15 years with an impressive tally of seats.
"This election was not only an electoral contest between the BJP and the Congress but instead a battle between people of MP and the ruling BJP. The growing anger of people against the misrule of BJP has transformed into enthusiastic support for the Congress," said Nath.
Reiterating that the party will win 140-plus seats, Nath said "I've not derived the figure out of any lottery, but it's the result of our extensive survey from Ground Zero, which have revealed that the Congress is a clear winner in the November 28 assembly polls," he maintained.
"I had personally visited various areas including those where we suffered heavy defeats last time and people used to give Congress no chance on seats but after seeing the atmosphere and using my political experience of 40 years, I came to know what kind of results was in offing on Dec 11."
"We did commit certain mistakes in Gujarat and Karnataka but in Madhya Pradesh we planned our strategy by learning from our past mistakes," he said.
He, however, was all in praise for the Election Commission of India (ECI) and also said that barring a few places, the local administration worked in a totally non-partisan manner on the ground. When asked what he felt about Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's statements about EC at times having been inhuman to the BJP, the MPCC chief said "let him (Chouhan) speak three-four days more what he likes."However, when questioned about who will be the CM and whether he was a frontrunner in the race for CM, the nine-time sitting MP from Chhindwara seat smiled and said "just wait for a few more days."
Earlier in the day, the party organized a session for all 229 candidates at the Manas Bhawan, where they were rendered tips by senior leaders, including Nath, leader of opposition Ajay Singh and Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha on how to be cautious and prevent any possibility of wrongdoing by rivals during the process of counting of votes on December 11. Importantly, the BJP too has organized a similar session for its 230 candidates in Bhopal on December 8.