Sushilkumar Shinde disagrees with Sharad Pawar over BJP poll performance

Pune: Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday disagreed with his UPA ally and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who has predicted emergence of BJP as the single largest party after the Lok Sabha polls.

"I do not think BJP will be the single largest party. In 2004, Vajpayee drew large crowds just as Modi this time, but despite the "India Shining" campaign, it was the UPA that came to power", the Congress leader told reporters here.

A couple of days ago, Pawar, whose party is a key ally of Congress-led UPA, had said although NDA would fail to get a majority, BJP could emerge as the single largest party.

Shinde, who was here to campaign for Congress candidate Vishwajeet Kadam, rejected suggestion that his party had already become "pessimistic" about the election outcome.

He said the country had faith in the party and its secular traditions and cited the comeback of Indira Gandhi in 1980 elections after the 1977 rout of Congress.

Fielding questions about sitting Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi who was denied ticket for the Pune seat, Shinde said it was a decision of the party high command.

He, however, maintained that Kalmadi cannot be held guilty (in CWG scam) until a court verdict in the case was pronounced.

The Minister said BJP's PM nominee Narendra Modi had not been given "clean chit" in the 2002 Gujarat riots as there were still cases pending in various courts over the communal violence in which over 1,000 people were killed.