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Praise the performance of the United Progressive Alliance government and that of the outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and don't run down allies: This is the Congress's advice to party spokespersons appearing before television channels on the day of counting on Friday.
In the wake of exit polls predicting a gloomy scenario for the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections, party's communication department chief Ajay Maken briefed the spokespersons on how to tackle the media and field questions.
The party felt the briefing necessary, as it doesn't want spokespersons to cause embarrassment for the party with their comments.
The Congress also instructed its "official voices" to avoid criticising allies, lest the poll outcome be somewhat different from that being predicted by exit polls. "Should the party bag 140 seats it could give a shot at forming the government (In 2004, it formed UPA-I with 145 seats) and then former allies like Trinamool Congress would be on board," said a Congress leader.
Although some Congress ministers had started blaming UPA government's failures for the possible electoral rout, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, in a meeting of general secretaries, drove home the message that the PM should not be singled out for blame. Besides, Congress spokespersons have been told to firmly counter the view that there was a "Modi wave" at play and rather ascribe it to the BJP making a comeback much in the fashion that the Congress had done earlier.
Also, despite the media being keen to project this election as a Modi versus Rahul Gandhi contest, Congressmen have been asked to reject such a view and to state that this was a "fight between two ideologies and two parties and not two individuals."
Party leaders have been provided with data on seats, especially in swing states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra on aspects such as voting percentage, past performance, etc.
A spokesperson told Business Standard: "Whatever be the outcome it has to be faced boldly and sportingly and projected as a collective responsibility."
