Union Law and Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused the Congress Party of trying the confuse the public by raking up issues like the government's refusal to give Public Accounts Committee access to the Chief Vigilance Commission's report on defence deals.

"Since Sonia Gandhi can't win an election the Congress is in search of an issue," told rediff.com in an exclusive chat.

Jaitley defended his government's decision not to allow access to the CVC's report even to Members of the Parliament.

"The report does not contain comments on the Kargil purchases, which the PAC had asked for. And the report itself is a secret document, which cannot be given even to the PAC members," Jaitely argued.

Commenting on the repeated adjournment of Parliament, he said, "The Vajpayee government has completed five-and-half years. In this long tenure the Congress has not been able to rake up even one issue against the government. Now they have dug up the non-existent report of a non-existent deal. It shows how much they are on the back foot now."

On the Congress plan to raise this issue in forthcoming assembly elections, he said, "The Congress is underestimating the public."

Six reasons, he said, will favour the ruling party.

"There is a feel good factor, which has been created by the government's many decisions. Economy is doing fairly well. Rain has been good and agriculture is looking up. (The) Kashmir issue is on the positive move and overall peace is maintained because of the democratic state government. Vajpayee's personal popularity graph is high. India's international standing is better than before."

Jaitely claimed that negatives against the ruling party were weak, while the Congress was facing problems.

"Congress chief ministers are not doing well. In the elections they want some issue so they picked up the CVC report issue by confusing the public. Former CVC N Vittal has already said that there is no CVC report on Kargil. Buta Singh didn't circulate the summary sheet provided by the CVC office to the PAC members. Now, the Congress has egg on its face."