Assembly poll results will have no bearing on Lok Sabha election: Jaitley

New Delhi [India], Dec 11 (ANI): Government on Tuesday said the assembly election results were not on expected lines but ruled out any adverse impact of these on the next year's Lok Sabha elections.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told ANI that BJP leadership and cadres would "pause and analyse the results and take corrective steps that may be required before the general elections due by May 2019.
He rejected the contention that the outcomes of the assembly result was a reflection on any individual and said, the results depend on many factors such as anti-incumbency, fatigue-factor or state leadership among others.
"No one should mislead himself that victory or defeat is of one person," Jaitley said.
"The results are not on the expected lines...The results are certainly an opportunity of BJP leadership and cadre to pause and analyse," he said adding that the leadership and cadre will undertake an honest assessment in this regard.
To a question, he said these assembly election results will have no bearing on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls which will be fought on Cenrtral Government's policies and the leadership of Prime Minister Modi.
"On one side you have a tried and tested leadership, on the other side you have unstable-coalition of parties with different ideologies, which would wither sooner or later," he said.
Arguing further that the assembly poll results will have no impact on Lok Sabha elections, Jaitley said the BJP had won assembly elections convincingly in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in December 2003 but lost months after in the general elections.
He maintained that the BJP governments in all the three states did exceptionally well and there was no anti-incumbency factor but the people might have wanted a change because of the fatigue factor.
Talking about Madhya Pradesh, he said the electoral battle is down to the wire and the final results should be awaited.
In Chhattisgarh, he said that the BJP did not expect the gap to be so big.
Referring to Rajasthan, Jaitley said that some peopl had ruled out any chances for BJP but it had done exceedingly well.
"We are only a fraction of vote behind (Congress) in the state," he said. (ANI)