It would be only BJP versus Cong in LS polls: Jaitley

Lucknow, June 5 (UNI) Claiming that the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party were irrelevant in the Central electoral politics, BJP general secretary and incharge of UP affairs Arun Jaitley today said since the Central politics remained bi-polar, the contest would be between Congress and BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP and Mayawati-led BSP may have their formidable presence in Uttar Pradesh but at the Centre, the contest would be between the two national parties, he told mediapersons here.

Making a strong case of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) making it to the power at the Centre in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Mr Jaitley said whenever the BJP and Congress were in direct fight, the former had emerged victorious. ''The major elections during the last three years in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Bihar and recently Karnataka have clearly suggested it,'' he pointed out.

The senior BJP leader said the BJP had emerged stronger in the recent past specially after the Karnataka polls and it was bound to attract more potent NDA allies. ''The NDA base would be expanded to form the government at the Centre,'' he claimed.

Sparing nothing against the governance of Congress-led UPA at the Centre, Mr Jaitely wondered how a party could think of retaining power which had been an utter failure on all fronts. ''The rising inflation has presented a sorry picture of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who himself and his party both seemed to have run out of the ideas,'' he commented.

Another point, the senior BJP leader said, which heavily tilted against the Congress was the crisis of leadership. ''We are of definite view that the public acceptance of Sonia Gandhi and her family had been diminishing day by day,'' he said.

The BJP general secretary was here to attend office bearers meeting of the party which according to him concentrated solely on the preparedness for the coming Lok Sabha polls. He claimed the BJP had recovered some of the lost ground in UP after the last Assembly debacle.

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