"Accused of backing and then toppling govts, we’ll act cautiously this time"

Of course, the Congress has benefited from the BJP’s follies, but the country has suffered more. The people were dejected with the BJP, but they did not blindly believe what the Congress promised. We convinced them of what our party will do and when, before they voted for us.

Of course, they are a referendum on the Vajpayee Government. For that matter, every election is a referendum on the performance or image of one or the other party, one or the other leader. Vajpayee should also accept the failure of his government. He, in fact, has no moral right to govern after being rejected by the people of at least four states.

After the public indictment of the Vajpayee Government, the coalition partners themselves would dump the BJP. And in case the present government falls, the Congress will not avoid its responsibility to provide an alternative government because it doesn’t want to put the burden of another election on the people.

The non-BJP parties are in a hurry for different reasons.But the Congress will not take any step to destabilise the present government. It will move in only after the present government falls apart. The modalities like who will head the government and who will support it can be finalised later.

Having been accused of popping up governments before toppling them, the Congress wants to tread cautiously this time. We will weigh all pros and cons before taking any step. You see, the Congress has only 140 MPs in a 540-member Parliament. Can it form a government on its own? And what purpose will it serve if we too provide an equally unstable coalition government with various partners pulling in different directions?

I have already explained the constraints our party isfacing. We will discuss all the issues in the CWC on Sunday and in the parliamentary party meeting to be held before the commencement of the parliamentary session on Monday. Anyway, I am pretty convinced that other non-BJP parties are more eager to come to power than the Congress. We are not power-hungry.

I never run away from any responsibility. But seriously speaking, there are a number of excellent young leaders in Rajasthan who can provide good government. The chief minister will be elected by the Congress Legislative Party after all the results are declared. (Laughs) I am not interested because I have started liking the magnificent building of Parliament.

I can’t claim that all the Congress candidates fielded this time had a clean image as per the Pachmarhi resolution. We might have lacked somewhere. But I am at least confident about the sincere efforts we made in this direction. I hope we will eliminate these discrepancies in the next elections and provide a clean and efficient government.

We did commit ourselves not to take the help of other parties, but the resolution also authorised the party leadership to enter into mutually beneficial tie-ups with non-BJP parties to stop the growth of communal forces wherever required. The party used this clause to have an informal electoral understanding with the BSP. But that was limited to MP only.

Frankly speaking, I am against all tie-ups with any other party. Be it the BSP or the Rashtriya Janata Dal or the Samajwadi Party. I have opposed the issue on the party’s fora as well. But I too can’t go against the interests of my party.