Chandigarh, Aug 26 (IANS): Former Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij on Monday claimed victory of the BJP in the forthcoming state Assembly polls, saying the regional parties “are now finished and the contest is only with the Congress, and we will easily defeat the Congress because they have committed so many sins”.

Expressing concern over the increasing incidents of sexual assault and rapes in the country, Vij said, “This country holds women in high regard, so such acts cannot be tolerated, and strict laws should be made for this. Those (guilty) who commit such crimes should be hanged, that’s the only solution.”

Vij was responding to media queries in Ambala.

On the list of candidates for Jammu and Kashmir elections, Vij said, “The list for Jammu and Kashmir has been released, and Haryana's will come soon.”

Regarding the question of extending the polling date, he said that he believed that “the date might be extended”.

Commenting on the clash between Congress and BJP workers over pamphlets in Rohtak, Vij said, “The Congress is starting to show its true colours.”

He added, “Nothing has happened or is going to happen, and yet they see themselves as the government in power; that's why they are in such a state.”

“Is the Congress going to bring back its era of hooliganism?” he questioned.

In response to Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi's challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement a caste census or the next Prime Minister would do it, Vij said, “I don't understand why Rahul Gandhi is insisting on a caste census. As far as I know, and considering their (Congress) history, they have been responsible for the Partition of the country based on religion, and they are accused of mass killings. In 1984, they were responsible for the killing of Sikhs…Rahul Gandhi's father justified it by saying that ‘when a big tree falls, the earth shakes’, but now whose earth do they want to shake?”

Haryana will go to the polls in a single phase on October 1.