BJP confident of a clean sweep in Gujarat

Former chief minister Keshubhai Patel on Sunday expressed confidence that BJP will win all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat in the coming elections.

Patel, who has been campaigning for the party in various parts of the state, was addressing mediapersons in the city. Patel said he had toured various areas in 20 constituencies of the state in the past two weeks and the situation in the state was very favourbale for BJP.

Patel said BJP would retain its 20 seats and wrest the remaining from Congress.

Senior BJP leader Suresh Mehta said in Ahmedabad on Sunday the party will strengthen its position. After the campaigning drew to a close at 5 pm, Mehta said 270 public meetings and over 2,000 group meetings and public contact programmes were organised in the state as part of the campaigning.

He said top central leaders including the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and BJP president Venkaiah Naidu campaigned in the state.

Chief minister Narendra Modi addressed 121 public meetings and Keshubhai Patel 102. Keshubhai Patel said he had visited several remote villages as part of his campaign and people were quite happy over the developmental activities undertaken by the BJP-led National democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

The former chief minister lauded Vajpayee for leading NDA.

Though NDA is a coalition of a number of parties, the identity of all the partners was kept intact. That is why NDA could become the only non-Congress government to complete its full term, Patel said.

On Khedut Samaj declaring support to Congress, Patel said it was the community and not the farmers who were supporting Congress.

Keshubhai said he had met several farmers in the recent months and all of them told him that they were with BJP.

Patel said the BJP government in Gujarat had taken many steps for the benefit of farmers. All the outstanding issues pertaining to farmers will be sorted out amicably, he said.

Patel said the NDA government has done a lot for the country's development in the past five years and if voted to power again, will speed up the development process.

On the Supreme Court ordering trial outside the state in the Best Bakery case, Patel said the law will take its own course. He said it would not be appropriate to comment on the court order.

The state government will seek legal advice on the matter after the elections, he said. Union rural development minister Kashiram Rana and state water resources minister Narottam Patel were also present at the press conference.