Rahul Gandhi claimed it may be impossible for BJP to win 2019 elections due to opposition unity.
Highlights
- Rahul Gandhi said opposition unity would ensure BJP's defeat in 2019
- He did not specify role that his party would play in coalition
- He dismissed any possibility of non-Congress, non-BJP third front
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president on Sunday prophesied PM Narendra Modi-led BJP's defeat in 2019, claiming that the elections would deliver a "collapse" of the national coalition not "seen in many years". This would be possible, Mr Gandhi said, "simply" because opposition unity was becoming a reality.
"Once opposition unity goes above a certain level, it becomes impossible to win elections. Now the opposition unity has gone to a point. It's simple," Mr Gandhi said at an informal media interaction in Bengaluru, according to news agency Press Trust of India.
The Congress leader did not specify the role that his party would play in this coalition but was dismissive of any possibility of a non-Congress, non-BJP third front emerging. The kind that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had floated.
His counterpart in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress, had lapped up the idea and was in Delhi last week to talk to other parties about opposition unity. At some of her meetings, according to reports, she was told by veteran opposition leaders such as Sharad Pawar that the Congress had to be part of such a coalition to have the punch.
She had also met Sonia Gandhi, the former Congress president who often does the reaching out to allies and hosts lunch or dinner meetings with opposition leaders.
Ms Banerjee's template for the opposition unity, inspired by the Akhilesh Yadav-Mayawati team's stunning victory in the Uttar Pradesh by-elections, was that major opposition parties should put up only one candidate against the BJP in seats. It is a format that former union minister Arun Shourie had also advised.
Mr Gandhi appeared to have something similar in mind.
He did not anticipate a problem forging opposition unity. "We in the Congress know how to carry people, we are not egotistical people, we don't crush people and we don't destroy people's lives, so we will manage it," Mr Gandhi said, according to PTI.
To a question about the coalition in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Gandhi said when the three parties (Samajwadi party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress) come together, "BJP will win only two seats, that too with luck.
He said even PM Modi may lose if he stands from Varanasi and the three parties were united against him. "In fact, I challenge him to stand with three parties united," he added.
In 2014, PM Modi, who had contested the election from Vadodara and Varanasi, had won both. He later retained Varanasi that had elected him with a record 56 percent of the votes polled.
"Frankly, I don't see the BJP winning the next election, so in 2019 we will go back to the normal, I sense," he said in reply to a question on resentment among Dalit communities.
Listing various states where the opposition parties were expected to come together, Mr Gandhi wondered where the BJP expected to get the seats from.
"You are going to see a collapse of the style you haven't seen in many years," he said, adding that the opposition will "take it over" in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana.
Taking a swipe at PM Modi and the BJP, he accused their party of only paying lip-service. They stand in front of Basavanna, the 12th century social reformer from Karnataka or Dr BR Ambedkar, "praise them, and then you destroy everything that they stood for".
"Basavanna is an idea, he is the representative of idea of Karnataka, you can go and stand in front of his statue as much as you want, but it won't work if you are destroying the idea... so, it is the mentality..." he said.