Varanasi: Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani today (Feb 20, 2004) said even the Opposition was convinced that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would return to power after the general elections.

"This is the first time in the country when everybody knows who the next Prime Minister of the country would be. Even the Opposition members admit in private that Atal Behari Vajpayee will be heading the Government after the polls," he said at a rally.

"There is no anti-incumbency factor. In fact, this is our biggest strength and working in our favour because no other previous Government performed so well," he said.

"Never has a Government performed so well during its five-year term and never has a Government been returned to power purely on the basis of its performance," Advani said.

He said even the Janata Party Government in 1977 had come to power because of the backlash against the Indira Gandhi Government that had imposed the Emergency and taken draconian measures against the Press, judiciary and sent lakhs to jail.