Talking to media persons at the airport lounge here on Thursday, he blasted Third Front leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Laloo Yadav and Jyoti Basu for egging on the Congress to take the initiative in replacing the Vajpayee government by a Sonia Gandhi-headed minority government, and then denying support when the Congress staked its claim.

Pilot said that while Basu categorically refused to support the Congress, Mulayam Singh Yadav surreptitiously projected Basu's name as a prime ministerial candidate, and Surjeet left the decision to the CPM politburo. ``It was a Third Front conspiracy against us (that was our undoing)'', he alleged.

Seeking to dispel the notion that the Congress brought down the Vajpayee government, he said, ``The Congress had no role in topplingthe government. We discharged our role as an active Opposition party only after the government fell on its own. But whatever happened is certainly not healthy.''

The former minister dismissed Vajpayee's charge that Congress was ``power-hungry''. Had the Congress been interested in coming to power, it would have entered into a coalition with the Third Front and the latter would have happily lapped it up, he claimed. ``But we wanted to form a government with the outside support of the Third Front'', he added.

Claiming that the Congress stood to gain from the current political development, Pilot predicted that his party would definitely improve its performance in the forthcoming polls and obtain a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. ``It will also improve its position in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and Karnataka'', he maintained.

Pilot said the elections should be postponed till September to allow the inclusion of eligible youth in the electoralrolls. This would not be possible if elections were held in June, as the BJP desired, he added.

``Early elections will deprive lakhs of their democratic right to exercise their franchise'', he said. ``Let the BJP seek votes on ideological principles and not on vague sympathy.''

Lamenting the ``weakening'' of moral and political values of society, Pilot appealed to the youth to reject communal forces at the hustings and vote the party that could keep the country united to power.