Karanjia (Orissa) (PTI): BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani on Wednesday blamed the Congress for poverty, rise in terrorist activities and other "failures" in the country and said people wanted to send the Sonia Gandhi-led party on a long leave and vote NDA to power.

"The UPA government has failed on all fronts and did not succeed to contain terrorism and price rise," Mr. Advani said on Wednesday while addressing an election meeting in this northern Orissa town.

Claiming that people were highly disillusioned due to the dismal show of Congress-led UPA, Mr. Advani said voters are keen to get rid of Congress by giving it a long break.

"The country remained backward and poor due to decades of misrule by Congress since Independence," he said referring to Congress' rule in past decades.

In a rally at Puri, the former Deputy Prime Minister, touched on other issues and said the previous NDA government raised India's status globally by conducting the Pokhran-II nuclear test despite stiff opposition from big players like the Unites States and China and facing economic sanctions.

Reiterating the party's promise that huge amount of black money stashed in Swiss banks by Indians would be brought back if BJP is voted to power, Advani said a host of projects for development and people's welfare can be implemented if the unaccounted money is retrieved.

In a scathing attack on Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for unilaterally breaking the 11-year-old BJD-BJP alliance, Mr. Advani said Patnaik "betrayed BJP without any fault of ours."

Stating that people had voted for BJD-BJP combine to get rid of Congress' 'misrule', the BJP stalwart said the BJD supremo would be stopped from retaining power for his miscalculated move.

Hailing Naveen father Biju Patnaik as a brave and courageous leader, Advani recalled how he and the legendary leader had been imprisoned during the emergency days.

"Naveen is forgetting which political party was responsible for sending his father to jail during emergency," he said, indicating the possibility of a secret understanding between BJD and Congress. However, he did not elaborate more on this.

Claiming that development and good governance had become the buzz word in states ruled by BJP, the former Union Home Minister said people in Orissa were also yearning for BJP government in the state.