"INDIA Bloc Will Decide PM Face After Being Elected": Congress Chief

Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday asserted that members of the INDIA bloc will sit together and decide the Prime Ministerial face if voted to power in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

"After being elected, all of us will sit together and decide the Prime Ministerial face," Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters in Chhattisgarh's Sukma.

The INDIA bloc is an alliance of 28 political parties formed to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

However, the mega alliance is yet to brainstorm on its Prime Ministerial face.

Speaking on the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, the Congress president said, "We will cross 75 (seats), not less than that. We will provide free education to children from primary to post-graduation, will give cylinders to women... The elected MLAs will decide who will hold the Chief Ministerial post".

Earlier today, Mallikarjun Kharge also held a public gathering in the Sukma district where he threw brickbats at the BJP stating that the latter "fooled" people in the name of caste and religion.

"They fooled people in the name of religion and caste. They trick people by saying that they made a woman belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) President. They should know that the Congress party gave the first woman Prime Minister to the country. The Congress empowered the backward classes", Mr Kharge said.

Praising the previous Congress governments, he said, "The BJP keeps asking what Congress has done for the country. There were no schools, no banks and no jobs. It all was done by the Congress. Modi Sahab (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) asks what we have done in the past 70 years. We have built the country. We constructed schools, public sectors, banks, industries, etc. Did Modiji construct schools in Chhattisgarh?"

Chhattisgarh is scheduled to hold polls in two phases on November 7 and 17. The counting of votes will take place on December 3 in all five poll-bound states.

Earlier in the 2018 assembly polls, the Congress came to power with a landslide victory, winning 68 seats out of 90.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)