Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday conceded that the Congress party was initially ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Himachal poll campaign, but by now his party had caught up with the main opposition.

"First Congress was ahead, but now it is an equal fight," he said, adding that in the coming days before the election the BJP has to work hard.

Talking to reporters on board a special flight en route to Kuala Lumpur, Vajpayee termed as "crude" an allegedly Congress pamphlet in Madhya Pradesh accusing him of eating beef and regretted that no one from that party has condemned this slanderous propaganda to date.

"I have seen it but no Congress leader has said so far that it should not have been done," he told reporters en route to the Malaysian capital to attend the NAM summit.

He wondered where the slanderous campaign would lead the Congress. Asked if the BJP was playing the Hindutva card in Himachal Pradesh, he, in an apparent reference to the beef issue, said someone should ask Congress president Sonia Gandhi what kind of game she was playing.