Puri, Feb 28: BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan on Saturday ridiculed the road show by AICC president Sonia Gandhi saying it was alien to Indian politics.
"What is this road show? It is a Western concept alien to this country," Mahajan, in Puri in connection with the launching of the BJD-BJP joint campaign, said.
The Congress, he said, had no leader to project before the people while the NDA had Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Naveen Patnaik as the undisputed leaders at the national and state level.

"Our competitors are leaderless at both the national and state level and they don't want to declare the captain before the match ... May be they will do so after the series is over."
The NDA and BJD-BJP alliance go to the polls on the basis of their performance and their plans for the future, Mahajan said.
Asked whether conversion will be an issue, he said "I have told you our priorities and the rest of the issues are local."
The BJP leader also rejected the anti-incumbency factor saying going by this argument no government could ever return to power. "This anti-incumbency factor affects only the non performing governments. For performing regimes it does not matter."

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was also present at the news conference, said both BJD and BJP are in an optimistic mood.

The BJD-BJP government's first priority had been the poor.
Bureau Report