Talking to newspersons in a Meet the Press programme, organised by the Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ) here on Thursday, Pilot opposed the view of the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sharad Pawar, that Congress' allies would decide the prime ministerial candidate and that Sonia Gandhi could be one only if Congress had a majority of its own.

Pilot pointed out that the unanimous election of Sonia as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) itself showed that the party could not think any other leader for the coveted post if it were to stake claim to form the government at the Centre.

``Being the second largest party in Parliament after the BJP and leader of the CPP she will be invited by the President if the present Government collapses,'' he pointed out and said that she would be the natural choice for the post. Even Pawar was chosen as Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha as per her directives, Pilot added. ``The day she decides, Pawar will not be there. He is there (as Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha) at her pleasure,'' Pilot further said.

However, Pilot denied that there was a tussle between the party chief and Sharad Pawar on the issue of leadership.

The tussle for supremacy in Congress assumes significance in the light of the current war of wits between BJP and its main ally, AIADMK chief Jayalalitha.

Pilot, who was one of the members of the enquiry team which probed the debacle of Ram Pradhan, the hand-picked candidate of Sonia Gandhi for Rajya Sabha election, admitted that the entire thing was mishandled by the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).

It was a fault on the part of the MPCC to have taken signatures of ten party MLAs on blank nomination papers which were used for an independent candidate, Arun Mehta, in the State Council polls held simultaneously with Rajya Sabha elections. ``This was purely against the Congress culture,'' Pilot said and denied that Ranjit Deshmukh, the then MPCC chief, was made a scapegoat in the whole affair.

Pilot claimed that money played a major role in the Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra. However, the Congress could not prove it due to lack of concrete evidences against its legislators, who cross-voted against the party nominees.

In the Rajya Sabha polls, Sonia's nominee Pradhan had lost but Pawar's choices, Vijay Darda and Najma Heptullah, won. Darda had won handsomely as an independent and Heptullah in the third round of counting. It was the first serious challenge to the Sonia camp which responded by sacking Pawar's man Deshmukh as the MPCC chief and replacing him with Pawar's arch rival, Prataprao Bhosale.

To a query he said that the Vajpayee Government should come out with a white paper against the misdeeds of godman Chandraswami. ``The Government should find out his nexus with foreigners, international mafia and different politicians,'' he said and claimed that Chandraswami was now close to the ruling BJP.

``Why is the Government not initiating action against Chandraswami for violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), non-payment of huge electricity bill of Rs 3 crore for his ashram at New Delhi and his coming under the Jain Commission's suspicion in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case?'' he asked and said that the godman's role in the transfer of ED chief Bezbaruah, too, cannot be ruled out.

On Vidarbha State issue, he said that the demand was a genuine one. ``There is a readymade infrastructures, including Raj Bhavan, CM's bungalow, ministers cottages and MLAs hostel at Nagpur,'' he said and asserted that the claim for statehood here was more genuine than that of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh.

He demanded that there should be a national policy for formation of smaller states. ``If the Congress comes to power we will do it,'' he added.

On Lok Pal Bill, Pilot admitted that the Congress regime led by P V Narasimha Rao made a mistake by not initiating the Bill.

Answering another question, he ruled out that a section of Congress Lok Sabha members would defect to the ruling BJP under the leadership of Pawar if Jayalalitha withdraws her support to the Vajpayee Government.