Advani cocks a snook at Sonia

“Universal experience shows that undecided voters tend to vote for the front-runner, and there is no dispute that the BJP and its allies occupy that position.”

From confidently predicting a tumultuous pro-BJP wave, Advani switched to speaking of a “silent, subterranean wave” that would manifest itself in the last phaseswing only when the ballot boxes are opened. Though every opinion poll has been predicting that the BJP and its allies would not win a majority, Advani was unfazed.

He said he was satisfied that all surveys indicated a massive swing — from seven to 10 per cent — in the BJP’s favour. “If this assessment is correct, nothing can stop us from getting a clear majority,” he said at a press meet this afternoon. In 1996, he pointed out, the BJP had increased its vote share by less than one per cent but its seats had increased from 119 to 162. Every opinion poll showed that neither the Congress nor the UF had even a ghost of a chance to form a government on their own, he said. “The choice before the electorate is simple : Vote for the BJP and its allies for a stable government, or vote for another costly mid-term election soon.”

Though Advani asked the Congress and the UF to make their post-poll intentions clear now, he refused to answer a similar question regarding the BJP. Asked which parties the BJPhoped to get support from if it failed to win a majority with its allies, Advani merely declared that such a situation would not arise.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Union minister K C Pant, whose wife is contesting on a BJP ticket from Nainital, formally joined the BJP today and was welcomed by Advani.

Another entrant was Maulana Agha Roohi Aqabati, a Shia leader from Lucknow, who said that since the BJP had now said that it would engage in dialogue on the Ayodhya issue, it was necessary for negotiations between Muslims and the BJP.