We hope to win in 3 more states: Dharmendra Pradhan at Panchayat Aaj Tak
But Congress and NCP say voters are coming out of Modi's spell.
The BJP hopes to win the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at an Aaj Tak conclave on Tuesday.
"Only people will decide what the results of the elections will be. But based on the Lok Sabha election results that came out three months ago, we have a hope that the BJP will win in the three states," Pradhan, the petroleum and natural gas minister, said in a debate with Congress' Sanjay Nirupam, JD-U's K.C. Tyagi and NCP's Tariq Anwar at Panchayat Aaj Tak.
But Nirupam said the Congress, and not the BJP, would win in the three elections.
He said there were no strains in the tie-up between the Congress and the NCP in Maharashtra.
He also said that the voters were coming out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "spell."
"They came to power on the promise of reducing inflation and bringing development. But we have not seen it happening in the last 100 days," he said.
Anwar too said the NCP was with the Congress. He said given the results of the bypolls in Bihar (where the BJP did not fare as well as expected), the results of the coming Assembly elections will be in the UPA's favour.
Asked if the Opposition keeps criticising the NDA government for the sake of it, Tyagi said the charge was wrong.
"We support the government's bank accounts for all scheme and its policies on north-eastern states. But the way communalists and industrialists have profited is not good," he said.
"Modi had said that sugarcane farmers would get MSP support. That hasn't happened and the farmers are committing suicide."
Asked if the Congress' allies are willing to accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader, Anwar said: "We've not decided anything on Rahul Gandhi. We will see when the time comes but the Opposition should not be seen as weak. We've seen days when the BJP just had two MPs."