Sharad Pawar said the Congress has a good chance of winning in Karnataka
The Congress has a good chance of winning the Karnataka assembly election next month, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar told NDTV on Friday.
The BJP is currently in power in Karnataka and is looking to win another term in the same state where it came to power for the first time in the country's southern region in 2008.
Mr Pawar said the Karnataka election can't be seen from the perspective of the national election to be held next year, although the BJP tends to connect national with state issues in its campaigns.
"My assessment (of Karnataka election) is that there are two types of elections - a national election for the central government and an election for the states. My personal assessment, and you may not agree, is that the state elections are a different game," Mr Pawar told NDTV.
"Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh aren't BJP governments. There is an election in Karnataka and my assessment is the Congress will win," said Mr Pawar, whose NCP is an ally of the Congress in Maharashtra.
He cited more examples of what he called the real ground situation when it comes to state elections, explaining how non-BJP parties have been able to win in assembly polls, though the BJP is in power in the centre.
"In Madhya Pradesh, it was a Congress government and Kamal Nath was the Chief Minister, though MLAs broke away and the BJP formed government later... Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab, West Bengal, many such states are non-BJP," the NCP chief said.
About the national election next year, Mr Pawar said the opposition needs to do something together, else it will be hard to defeat the BJP. "It will be very difficult to ignore the BJP (in 2024). Nothing will work for us if we (opposition) do not do something together," he said.
Mr Pawar himself has experience of unseating the BJP in Maharashtra and forming government with the Uddhav Thackeray's Sena faction and the Congress. Their alliance was short-lived, as Sena MLAs led by the current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde revolted and formed government with the BJP, Mr Thackeray's former ally.
The Karnataka election will be held on May 10; votes will be counted three day later.
Read full transcript of the interview here