Guwahati, (Samajweekly) Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday took an indirect jibe towards his rival candidate Shashi Tharoor while visiting Assam to campaign for the upcoming Congress presidential election.
“Some people have been roaming with their own manifesto, but, why should I have it? In the Udaipur Chintan Shivir, a detailed roadmap for the party was prepared by the various internal committees. I have those declarations with me and once I sit in the Congress president’s chair, I will implement these one by one.”
“Decisions taken at Udaipur have declarations for all wings of Congress party like Youth Congress, Mahila Congress, etc. I will try to materialise those declarations taken by the leaders of our party,” he said.
Stressing on his credentials for the Congress President’s post, Kharge said that he has more than 50 years of experience working from the block level to a Congress Working Committee member to end as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
The veteran Congress leader also launched a sharp attack on BJP saying that the ruling party is doing a ‘Bharat Todo’ exercise in the country.
Citing his reason to contesting for the top party post, Kharge said that interim party chief Sonia Gandhi clearly declared that nobody from Gandhi family will compete for the post and party delegates will decide the next Congress President. She will not interfere in the whole process.
“Then our senior leaders and party workers reached out to me with a request to fight for the post because the BJP has been continuously instigating fights between communities, religion, etc. The democratic institutions are facing a threat from the ruling party and they have been undermining the country’s constitution too,” he said.
The senior Congress leader alleged that BJP has been trying to break the Congress in almost every state.
“They broke our government in at least 6-7 states like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Arunachal, etc. In Gujarat, we had given them a strong fight in the last Assembly election, but there also, the BJP tried to do the same thing.”
“When a party MLA or MP does not fall into their trap, BJP uses the ED, or the CBI against them or lure opposition leaders by promising to give some big responsibilities. This is a total insult to democracy. (Pandit Jawaharlal) Nehru ji was Prime Minister for such a long time but he never did such malicious things, instead, he used to show respect for opposition party leaders,” Kharge told reporters here.
The Congress presidential candidate also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his desperation to campaign for the party.
“If Prime Minister has charisma, why he had to go for the campaign even in the corporation elections,” he questioned.
