Congress top brass to hold consultations on post poll strategy

NEW DELHI: After facing a difficult election, Congress top brass including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi are expected this evening to deliberate on the strategy ahead.

The Congress core group, headed by Gandhi, will be holding consultations at a time when exit polls would be out, giving indications of the shape of things to come when results are declared on May 16.

While BJP under its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is upbeat about the prospects, Congress leaders are claiming that UPA III is coming to power.

Only last week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that Congress has a "very good chance" of forming a government under its leadership with some allies.

His remarks had come amid talk of an "enlarged" UPA-III to stop Narendra Modi from coming to power.

A senior party leader had floated the idea of an "enlarged" UPA-III taking on board new allies and keeping open the issue of leadership to stop Modi from becoming the Prime Minister.

"All options are on the table and no option is off the table. It all depends upon the numbers we get and the BJP gets and the margin between them," a senior party leader, who declined to be identified, had said echoing the sentiments of a section of the party.

Another section, however, is advocating that the party should sit in the opposition if it comes out with reduced numbers.

The argument of this section is that in such a situation the party can come up the winner on its own in the next Lok Sabha elections.