New Delhi: The Congress today said it was open to post-poll alliances, even though it exuded confidence of emerging victorious in all five states, including Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
“It is obvious that neither politics nor nature permits a vacuum. In such a situation, not a single voter or party would want elections after elections.
“Therefore, in that situation the most easily available handshake which will ensure a certain amount of continuity in governance without a vacuum will be attempted,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said when asked if the party was ready for an alliance if the results throw up hung assembly.
The Congress leader also said that to say beyond that is “highly hypothetical and highly speculative which is absolutely unnecessary”.
At the same time, he exuded confidence that the party would emerge victorious in all the five states that went to polls, including Uttar Pradesh where it fought elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
“We have the least doubt about our victory and it is not necessary to reply to such hypothetical questions and it is not the truth.
“Let me reiterate very categorically that we are supremely, strongly and comprehensively confident of victory in each of the states on our own and in Uttar Pradesh in the alliance form,” he claimed.
Singhvi said irrespective of who wins tomorrow in different states, it will be a victory for democracy, it will be a victory for the voters, a victory for the winning party, a victory for the winning candidate and a victory for India.
Pointing fingers at the kind of poll campaign resorted to by BJP and NDA leaders, he targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah for resorting to the kind of language used in the campaign and for adopting “cheap tactics” in attempts at polarising and dividing society.
Singhvi said the kind of idiom employed, the kind of symbolism created, the kind of divisiveness, atmospherics attempted. These are not going to be condoned by any result any which way and these are against and will remain against the idea of India and against the ethos of India, he said.
“The Prime Minister must be singled out to having been acted in inverse proportion to the stature of the office he holds. Inverse proportion in terms of cheap tactics, hitting below the belt and analogies which do not behove the high Office of the Prime Minister of this great country and stooping not to conquer but stooping to divide, stooping to debase and devalue, stooping to insult,” he said.
Singhvi also questioned exit polls by various channels and pointed out they had gone “awfully wrong” in the 2009 general elections as well as in Bihar and Tamil Nadu assembly elections, saying they cannot be adopted in a country as diverse as India, where the society is not homogeneous unlike in the United States or Europe. .