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It?s an ideological battle, says Congress
The Congress says people will decide if they want peace personified by Gandhiji or the divisive politics of Golwalkar.
If BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan is confident of a Shiv Sena-BJP sweep in Maharashtra, Congress veteran Digvijay Singh signifies the more realistic mood in the Congress camp with the assertion that 'politics is the art of the impossible'.
According to Singh, Wednesday's vote will be an ideological battle between two distinct streams of thought: the communal harmony represented by the Congress-NCP-RPI alliance and the politics of hatred personified by the Sena-BJP. "People will decide if they want the peace and harmony personified by Mahatma Gandhi or the divisive politics of Guru Golwalkar and Bal Thackeray".
Ridiculing Mahajan, Singh says: "He is banking on the BSP factor. That itself tells you how confident the Sena-BJP is". He expresses the view that the Congress will form government and if it needs a little help on this score, then politics will prove to be the art of the impossible.
Following the same line of thought, AICC general secretary Margaret Alva says: "We will cross that bridge when we come to it. But we believe we will form the government on our own".
On the issue of farmer suicides he counters, “Why did this problem come up only after the NDA came to power? "They did nothing for farmers in their six years of rule and now they want farmers to believe that they have their interests at heart", he says.
On Thackeray's abuse of Sonia and Pawar, Singh follows his party president's line that it is not in Congress culture to abuse other parties and leaders and it is for the people to decide which is the better party. He denies the party has any intention of taking the issue to court, instead saying: "We'd rather go to the people's court and let them decide".
