Manish Tewari trashes opinion polls, says Cong will be back in power

New Delhi, Jan 24: Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting

on Friday debunked results of opinion polls giving some weightage to BJP in the Lok Sabha

, saying those who have given prime ministerial candidates will sit in Opposition.

"After demolishing all surveys and analyses, when results of 2014 Lok Sabha elections come, you'll find that with God's grace and support of people those who have given prime ministers to the country are back in power and those who have given Prime Ministerial candidates are again back in their permanent place, the Opposition," Tewari told reporters.

Tewari said certain people wrote off Cong in past but it bounced back

The Union minister said "certain people" had a habit of writing off the Congress, which has a habit of bouncing back. Speaking to reporters here, Tewari attacked BJP's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi saying his government in Gujarat worked only for a few capitalists. "If you analyse the administration in what is called the Gujarat model, 5 crore Gujaratis have lagged behind while 5-6 capitalists have progressed. So if the farmers are protesting there, they are doing the right thing," he said.

The Minister said if fascist powers were strengthened, freedom of media would be a casualty. The minister said the UPA's ideology is to think as "we", while their opponents proclaimed "me".

In response to a query on barring opinion polls, Tewari said the UPA government does not believe in imposing bans. With reference to reports alleging that two news-channels were blocked in Uttar Pradesh, the minister said the incident had shown the difference between UPA and others. When asked if the Congress planned to promise job quotas in private sector, Tewari refused to comment saying the manifesto is at present a work in progress but added that his party had historically worked to empower weaker sections.

PTI