This was the theme line, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar dealt with while kicking off his 68-days old party's election campaign in the State from this erstwhile princely city.

NCP could play a vital role in forming the government at the Centre after the elections, if it becomes a chunk of 50 to 55 MPs, Pawar said. Calling it a challenge to rebuild the nation in the truer sense, Pawar told his listeners that Maharashtra would be playing a vital role in this rebuilding of the nation.

``Maharashtra should not forsake this opportunity,'' the Maratha strongman said hurling a major offensive against the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi. The party boasting the legacy of over a century was turned into a mere congregation of sycophants, Pawar said.

Reiterating that intra-party democracy in Congress had collapsed, he said that even if he left the Congress Party in the past, rejoining the main stream again was never enigmatic for him since he was a follower of the thinking process initiated by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Touching upon Kargil issue, the former defence minister stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which could not protect the nation's frontiers properly had no right to beg for votes.

Earlier, Pawar addressed a State-level rally of Other Backward Castes (OBC) organisations and inaugurated the elections officers of his party's candidate from Karad Parliamentary constituency Sriniwas Patil and Karad south assembly segment Vilasrao Watharkar.