Patna: With less than 24 hours left for the counting of votes for the Karnataka Assembly elections, BJP Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha refused to join his party leaders to claim that the BJP was going to win.

"The exit polls have just added to the confusion about the likely outcome of the Karnataka elections. I would rather wait for the outcome instead of making any claim about it," Sinha, who was in Patna for the past two days, told The Telegraph before leaving for Delhi on Monday.

While the BJP MP avoided making guesses, he didn't forget to mention that how his party president Amit Shah had been proved wrong on past several occasions about outcomes of elections.

"My party president had claimed two-thirds majority for the BJP in the Delhi Assembly elections but we were just restricted to two or three seats," pointed out the Bihari Babu, as Sinha is popularly called here.

"He had made similar claims ahead of Bihar Assembly elections but the Grand Alliance won two-thirds of the seats," Sinha rubbed in for good measure.

Known for speaking his mind irrespective of the party line, the BJP MP aired his opinion about Congress president Rahul Gandhi vis-à-vis the Karnataka elections.

"I have always maintained that taali kaptaan ko to gaali bhi kaptaan ko (If the captain gets the applause, so should the criticism)," Sinha said.