TRIVANDRUM, 5 January 2004 — Senior Congress party leader and Kerala chief minister A.K. Antony yesterday said he was confident that party president Sonia Gandhi would forge a grand alliance well ahead of the general elections with the secular and democratic parties that are strong regionally.
He said Gandhi was in constant touch with the regional leaders and a concrete shape was expected to emerge in a couple of months.
“The response so far was encouraging,” the chief minister told a meet-the-press program. Dismissing criticism that Gandhi lacked capability to take other parties along, Antony said, “Sonia Gandhi is accepted by a large number of people across India. We have no problem as long as she enjoys popular support cutting across caste, communal and regional barriers”.
The setback in the states that went to the polls last month was temporary, Antony said. “Only the regional issues came into play and there was this anti-incumbency factor as the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were already in power for ten years,” he said.
