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Ready to be PM: Rahul
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has indicated that he is ready to become prime minister if his party emerges the largest in 2019, prompting BJP to call it a pipe dream. \"It depends on how well the Congress does in the election...If it emerges the biggest party, yes. Why not?\", Gandhi replied to a question on whether he was ready for the top job at an interaction in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
Bengaluru: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has indicated that he is ready to become prime minister if his party emerges the largest in 2019, prompting BJP to call it a pipe dream. "It depends on how well the Congress does in the election...If it emerges the biggest party, yes. Why not?", Gandhi replied to a question on whether he was ready for the top job at an interaction in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
The question came up after the Congress president claimed that the BJP won't be able to form the next government and that he was "pretty confident" that Narendra Modi would not be the next prime minister.
"If the Congress acts as a "platform" (with other parties in a coalition), the BJP does not stand a chance of winning the elections," he said at a function during his campaign for the Karnataka elections.
This is the second time when Rahul Gandhi has indicated that he is ready to become prime minister if the Congress gets a majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Last year in September, he told a group of students in Berkley University in US that he was "absolutely ready" to be the prime ministerial candidate if the party wants it.
Shortly after he made the remark in the morning, the BJP mocked him by calling it a "pipe dream" and its party spokesperson Sambit Patra wondered whether Gandhi has asked bis bhais and didis - a reference to Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, who are likely to call the shots in any anti-BJP platform that comes up - before making that statement.
"Rahul Gandhi is dreaming of 2019," Amit Malviya, the BJP's IT cell head, wrote in a tweet. "Has Congress given up on Karnataka?" he then asked, referring to Saturday's crucial vote in the southern state - one of the trio still ruled by the Congress. Union Minister Giriraj Singh said Gandhi should "worry about saving his remaining 44 seats."
Senior Congress leaders rushed to back their president with former union minister P Chidambaram saying that it was the wish of everybody in the Congress. Kapil Sibal, another former union minister who was approached for a response, shot back: "Why not?"
For Rahul Gandhi - who runs a party which governs just three out of India's 29 states, faces a formidable opponent in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, and is bracing for a series of tough electoral tests before next year's parliamentary polls - the prime-ministership is still something of a faraway dream.
