New Delhi, Oct 8 (IANS): Senior national spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party Sudhanshu Trivedi said on Tuesday that going by the trend as counting for Haryana and J&K Assembly elections are in progress, the party is confident of a “historic” mandate.

“We should wait for the final result. The trend appears to be positive,” he said, speaking to IANS.

The Rajya Sabha MP went on to assert: “We are confident that BJP will have a decisive mandate of the people, possibly a historic mandate. We are moving towards a fabulous result in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir.”

Referring to Congressman and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, with regard to his controversial and widely-criticised comments against the Indian government in the US during an official visit, he said: “They should be apologetic, those who in foreign land said things like there is no democracy in India, and that democratic arrangements have fallen weak.”

“Democracy is alive, and in a place like Kashmir with 80 per cent voter turnout, this festival of democracy should be accepted irrespective of who the result is in favour of. The country should not be defamed,” he concluded.

When counting started at 8 a.m. in Haryana, the Congress took a modest lead over the ruling party but within two hours of counting, the BJP took a decisive lead over the Opposition party.

However, in J&K, the NC-Congress alliance seems to have consolidated its lead in 51 seats while BJP was ahead on 27, as per the latest Election Commission of India data.

The National Conference (NC) on its own has established a firm lead in 43 seats and the Congress 8.