Congress leaders on Sunday exuded confidence that the party will do much better than what was projected in the exit polls in states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, and asserted the INDIA bloc is going to form the next government.
Two separate virtual meetings were held with one involving Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC chief Rahul Gandhi with the party's Lok Sabha candidates, legislative party leaders and state unit chiefs while another by Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh with key state leaders, PCC presidents and legislature party leaders of various states.
Kharge, Rahul, party general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal, along with other senior leaders, interacted with the party's Lok Sabha candidates and reviewed the preparations for the counting day on June 4.
The meeting comes a day after exit polls predicted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the BJP-led NDA expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
Ramesh has said that the exit polls that came out Saturday evening are "completely bogus" and have been "orchestrated and masterminded by the man whose exit is inevitable and guaranteed on June 4".
"These are all part of the psychological games being played by the outgoing prime minister (Narendra Modi) and the outgoing home minister (Amit Shah). The outgoing home minister calls up 150 District Magistrates and collectors yesterday. The results that the exit polls have come up with bear no relation to reality," the Congress leader alleged.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties had also met here on Saturday and took stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and asserted they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
During his zoom call interaction with Ramesh, Assam Congress chief Bhupen Borah said that his party would win at least seven seats in the state. He said that alleged internal squabbling in the BJP and the impact of the INDIA bloc had benefitted the Congress.
Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa said all the surveys have given 7-9 seats to the Congress. "We are ahead on 9 seats, 1 seat will go to the AAP and 3 seats will be won by the candidates who will not in any way help the NDA or PM. The INDIA alliance will get a minimum of 10 seats...In Punjab, the NDA is not going to get even a single seat," he said.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said the Congress has an edge on two parliamentary seats and is in a tight contest on the two other seats in the hill state. He exuded confidence that the Congress was also winning the six assembly seats where the bypolls have taken place.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said that his party would win at least two-third of the 28 seats on the back of the popularity of the guarantees the Congress fulfilled after coming to power in the state. Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh said that his party would definitely win 6-7 seats out of 9 seats it contested in the state.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, Haryana state unit chief Udai Bhan, Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra and Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajai Rai also spoke during the interaction and exuded confidence of a much better performance in their respective states than the projections made in the exit polls.
The unusual interaction before the media came a day after the Exit polls on Saturday predicted that Prime Minister Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the BJP-led NDA expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
All the state leaders, who spoke at the virtual interaction, debunked the exit polls as part of a psychological game being played by the BJP to "reduce the morale of the Congress workers".