(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday said the results of state assembly elections where the Bharatiya Janata Party lost three major states were unlikely to have a bearing on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls which would be fought on the 'central governments performance.
He said it was time for his party to 'pause and introspect but brushed aside the claims that the Congress won on account of Rahul Gandhi's dynamic leadership.
'The issues in state elections are entirely different. We won all these three states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh) in December 2003 and we lost the general elections in 2004. So, there is no automatic transfer, Jaitley said.
He insisted that the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will be fought around the performance of the central government and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'The election issue will be whether we want a tried and tested leadership and government in place or we want an unstable, non-ideological coalition which is bound to splinter away sooner than later, he said.
Stressing that the BJP did quite well in all the three states despite a plethora of factors, such as anti-incumbency, going against it, Jaitley said his party could have done better.
'It was a tough fight but we had not speculated that the gap would be so large. Certainly we could have dome much better. I think it's time for us to pause and introspect, he said.
On Gandhi's leadership, he said no election depends on an individual.
'An election is a combination of several factors. I don't think anybody should mislead himself by thinking that the victory or defeat is due to one person, he said.
Earlier, BJP spokesman G V L Narasimha Rao said the results showed that local factors determined the outcome in each state and the party will come back strongly in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with a result better than in 2014 due to 'Modi factor.
He said the results show that there is no uniform trend across the country.
'This is evident from the fact that even the Congress suffered massive defeats in Mizoram and Telangana. Despite 15 years of anti-incumbency in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has put up a fight and has made a major comeback in Rajasthan, he said.
Rao said the vote share of the BJP and the Congress in both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is almost identical and it 'clearly shows that the BJP has the potential to come back with big victories in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
'Defeat in Chhattisgarh and a strong performance in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh reveals that the elections were fought on local factors. In the Lok Sabha polls, BJP will increase its vote share because of the Modi factor which will take it far ahead of the Congress. The party will post a bigger victory than in the 2014 polls, he said.
The BJP has said it will fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections under the leadership of Modi.
The opposition has indicated that they will not project a prime ministerial candidate.
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