INDIA bloc’s PM face to be decided after Lok Sabha polls: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: The decision on the INDIA bloc’s PM face will be taken only after the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, whose party leads the 27-party opposition alliance, said on Friday.

“INDIA is fighting an ideological election and a decision on the PM candidate will be taken after the polls,” Gandhi said at the launch programme of the party’s poll manifesto.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP are seeking a third consecutive term, the opposition alliance is yet to take a call on its face for the country’s top post. At an INDIA meeting in December last year, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal, her Delhi counterpart, had suggested Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s name for the post. Kharge, however, had replied that the coalition must first win enough number of seats to stake claim to the PM’s post.

Gandhi, meanwhile, further stated that the 2024 general elections will be ‘closer’ than what is being projected in the media. Nearly every pre-poll survey has predicted a convincing win for the incumbent government.

“A similar slogan of ‘India Shining’ was propagated in 2004. Do remember who won that campaign,” the ex-Congress chief remarked. In the 2004 national polls, the “India Shining” slogan of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government had failed miserably, despite surveys predicting a win for the saffron party. The Congress had emerged as the single-largest party, formed an alliance government, and was re-elected in 2009.

In 2014, however, Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power, and were victorious five years later as well. This time, they are targeting 370 seats on their own and over 400 with allies, in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

Voting for the Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases, the first of which is on April 19, and the final, on June 1. The counting of votes for all 543 constituencies will be conducted on June 4.