'I'm not ready to believe that Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is a terrorist'

I still don't consider the Congress a formidable political rival.

•So you think the Congress is going to lose in the Centre as well as the states?

It will definitely lose in the states and that is inevitable in the Centre too because you may have seen that whichever states have held Vidhan Sabha polls in the last one, one and a half years, have seen the Congress lose. In the current atmosphere anybody can tell that at this point the first choice of the people of this country is the BJP.

•The states that the Congress has lost in are states where it was facing anti-incumbency, now there is anti incumbency against you.

But there is anti incumbency because of the UPA govt having been in power at the Centre for the last 4 and a half years.

•The Centre is a different issue. But as far as your basic agenda in the elections is concerned, it three major pillars, namely terrorism, that the UPA is soft on terrorism. The second is minority appeasement, that they are not hanging Afzal Guru because he's from a minority community and the third issue is price rise/inflation. So now if you consider the Malegaon case, has it not taken the wind out of your sails . Now how will you be able to claim that there is Islamic terrorism and the UPA is not doing anything about it?

We have never identified terrorism with any particular community and we have never called it Islamic terrorism.

•You have never called it Islamic terrorism? A lot of BJP leaders have used the term. I will have to go back and research that.

Never, no BJP leader has used the term. You can do your research but the BJP has never used the term because we do not want to associate terrorism with a particular caste, faith or religion. A terrorist is just a terrorist, he has no caste, faith or religion. But I take severe exception to the use of the phrase Hindu terrorism. I had expected that Congress being the oldest political party in the country , would via its spokesperson or leader condemn the use of this term. The phrase 'Hindu Terrorism' should not be used but till date no such statement condemning the use of the term has emerged from the Congress.

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