Scottish Secretary David Mundell has insisted the Conservatives can overtake Labour to become the second party at Holyrood.
Mr Mundell said Scottish party leader Ruth Davidson was already the "de facto" opposition leader and had the "capacity and ability" to steer the party into second place.
He told journalists at a briefing in Edinburgh that regional votes would be the key to Scottish Conservative success in May.
Mr Mundell said: "I've seen for myself that Ruth is the real leader of the opposition in the Holyrood parliament and now she has the opportunity at these elections to become the official leader of the opposition, and I'm confident that we can achieve that objective in the elections ahead."
He added: "I think it's a great opportunity for us and I think that we want to focus all our efforts onto achieving that objective, maximising our support and our share of the vote.
"We're just very, very focused on maximising our regional success across Scotland and getting the biggest group of Conservative MSPs ever in the Scottish Parliament.
"Ruth has shown that she is the de facto leader of the opposition at Holyrood, I want to see her as the official leader of the opposition at Holyrood.
"I think that would be the best outcome for Scotland, even for people who support the SNP and want Nicola Sturgeon to continue as First Minister, they don't want her not to be held to account, they don't want nobody in the Parliament to be able to go toe to toe with her on the big issues of the moment.
"Ruth has shown that she has got the capacity and ability to do that. I think the public in Scotland see that and I think they will demonstrate that in the ballot box."
A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "The Tories have been promising a great Scottish revival since 1997 and it never appears.
"No matter how many clever photo ops they attempt, people know Ruth Davidson is just another Tory like Cameron and Osborne."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article