Congress confident of recovering lost ground in Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir

The Congress party on Tuesday stated that it is confident of recovering lost ground in both Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, adding that early trends of assembly election results in both states should not be inferred as a signal of the party losing its political grip or ground in the country.

"We respect the decision taken by the people. In a democracy, the beauty is that governments keep changing. This in no way should mean that the Congress has lost its ground," Congress national spokesperson Shobha Oza said.

"In 1999, the Congress was in power in only three states, but by 2004, the party had eleven states in its kitty. Once again the Congress will strengthen itself in these states and form the government," she added.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad refused to give any credence to any surge taken either by the Bharatiya Janata Party or the People's Democratic Party.

"The way exit polls showed that BJP or the PDP is making a clean sweep it isn't so. We would never go with the BJP, as for PDP and the NC we have had alliance with them in the past too, let's see what happens," he said.

However, Congress in-charge in Jharkhand, B K Hariprasad, was not too optimistic about the poll outcome in the eastern state, terming it as a setback for his party.

"The trend in Jharkhand is a setback for the Congress and the party workers," he said.

The trends coming from both states show that Jammu and Kashmir appears to be heading for a hung assembly, while the BJP is all set to form government in Jharkhand.