Mallikarjun Kharge addressed a press conference in Shimla today. (FILE)
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had a witty response ready when he was asked, yet again, who would be the Prime Ministerial candidate of the INDIA bloc. "It's like asking 'Kaun Banega Crorepati'," Mr Kharge said, referring to the popular TV quiz show hosted by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
"If we form the government, all the leaders will decide who will be their PM," he said during a press conference in Shimla.
Mr Kharge also reminded that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance ran the government for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 without proposing a PM candidate before the elections.
"In 2004, Congress leaders wanted Sonia Gandhi to be the Prime Minister but she refused. We didn't have the majority, we had 140 seats. We returned to power in 2009 with 209 seats. We formed the UPA alliance and ran the government for 10 years," he said.
"Sometimes even wise people forget history," the 81-year-old said, taking a jibe at the ruling BJP who had been targeting the INDIA bloc for failing to come up with a Prime Ministerial candidate.
Targeting the BJP, Mr Kharge said that the party lied to the country "when it talked about 2 crore jobs in 2014, when it talked about reducing inflation. Nothing happened".
"The Prime Minister made big promises in 2014 and 2019 but did not look back after that. He did not help Himachal Pradesh when it was struck by a natural disaster. The BJP is working to topple governments in the country and has tried to destabilise the Congress government of Himachal," he alleged.
On February 27, six former Congress MLAs - Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul and Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chetanya Sharma (Gagret) and Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) - had voted in favour of the BJP Rajya Sabha nominee Harsh Mahajan.
Two days later, they were disqualified for defying a party whip to be present in Vidhan Sabha and vote in favour of the government during the cut motions and budget. These MLAs later joined the BJP and were given the ticket from their respective assembly seats.
Polling for all four Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 1. The results will be out on June 4, as in the rest of the country.