Addressing newspersons at the party headquarters here on Friday, Joshi said bowing to international pressure, successive Congress governments put the national nuclear and the missile programmes in cold storage and even agreed to roll back a planned nuclear test.

"Manmohan Singh's so-called globalisation was also a move to starve armed forces of resources by a systematic cut in defence allocation", Joshi said adding that against this backdrop, it was natural that the party should find fault with Pokharan-II, Agni and the new defence doctrine.

Hitting out at the party for playing politics when the nation was fighting war, Joshi alleged that Congress under its banner had collected money and material in the name of Kargil but nobody knew where all the collections had gone.

Ridiculing Congresscampaigners who, he said, were crisscrossing the country like "Alice in Wonderland", Joshi said they had nothing to say about the problems of illiteracy, population growth, border security, farmers and the homeless."

"The Congress must tell the people what is its action programme, rather than merely chant about its leader's Indianness", Joshi said.

Praising BJP-led coalition government's performance, he said despite having had to fight war, the national economy was buoyant. "There has been a record output of foodgrains; foreign exchange reserves have increased; industrial production is up; the stock market is booming; and exports are looking up," Joshi said.

Joshi claimed that during his tour and reports pouring in from all parts of the country, it was becoming clear that the dominant theme in the election was the "positive deleopment agenda" which Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had placed before the nation. "The agenda has caught the imagination of the Indian electorate. That is why it is Vajpayeeall the way. The strong undercurrent of goodwill that one noticed in the last few months is now shaping into a formidable Vajpayee wave", Joshi said adding that " in a way, Vajpayee personifies Election 1999".

When Vajpayee took the reins of administration, the people were torn between the effects of globalisation and their search for roots.The choice now was clear--this election would decide whether India would enter the next millennium as a synonym of power and success. Whether the achievements in science and technology would be put to use for defence and development, he asked exuding confidence that under Vajpayee's leadership, the country would strive for peace and a non-exploitative world order as he had become an "icon of peace, harmony, prosperity and pride".