Suggesting an offensive policy for UPA, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today defended Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's blistering attack on BJP and said the Centre has been "defensive for too long".
Emerging from his 30-minute meeting with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde here, Omar said Rahul's speech was timely and added that the UPA should shun the approach of being on the backfoot.
"He was very combative (and) that is required for UPA. We have been defensive for too long. There were mistakes but there are more positives than negatives. Why should we be on the backfoot," Omar told reporters.
"We have made mistakes along the way...Ten years but that is a learning curve in power," he said.
To a question about the prospects of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Rahul, Omar said "come on, you cannot compare an orange with an apple. What Rahul said today and said with tone and tenor, it was needed. He was combative and that was needed."
He said Rahul is going to head the UPA campaign. "We are hopeful that UPA will get maximum seats in elections. Naturally, MPs will elect him and he will become the Prime Minister."
He also said Congress had no culture of declaring Prime Ministerial candidate before polls but since Rahul is going to lead the campaign, so naturally he should be the Prime Minister.
"Besides this, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has declared he won't be Prime Minister again," he said.
Asked about the opinion polls suggesting the rout of UPA in 2014 general elections, he said "elections are not decided by surveys. Voters decide elections. So wait for the day when results are out.
