The Congress party is willing to adopt flexibility towards other strong regional political parties ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a leader close to party president Rahul Gandhi told The Quint.
The grand old party, over the last few decades, has been subjected to trenchant criticism for its long history of association with the Gandhi-Nehru family. However, the Congress, this time, is ready to face the question, citing the examples of former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao, the source said, adding that the charges of nepotism were nothing but the BJP’s and RSS' political strategy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got 93 seats collectively, out of total 120 seats, in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Congress is primarily eyeing these two states, in an effort to diminish the saffron party's tally.
If the Congress forms an alliance with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in UP, and Lalu Yadav’s RJD in Bihar, the BJP will not get more than 10 seats.Source Close to Rahul Gandhi
Besides UP and Bihar, the source said that in states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, where BJP won 85 of the 113 seats, the Congress will "show the latter a mirror."
However, the coalition that the Congress is hinging its hopes on is far from taking any concrete shape. Not only is the arrival of all political parties on the same platform important for such a coalition but also of the supporters and cadre who work in tandem ahead of the big 2019 battle.
‘Modi Won't Become PM Again’
The source claims the Gandhi scion is confident that Narendra Modi will not become the Prime Minister of the country if the BJP gets less than 240 seats on its own. "Shiv Sena, the BJP ally, has been throwing tantrums for quite a while now," he said.
Eyeing The South
It's not just the Hindi heartland but also the southern part of the country that the Congress has set its eyes on. A source close to Rahul claimed that Congress' alliance with the DMK is all but sealed in Tamil Nadu. "The BJP is trying to gain a foothold in the South. They won't succeed at all, let alone establishing themselves there," the source said.
'Coalition Not a New Experiment'
The BJP usually targets the Congress and its potential allies, saying it's the circumstances that force the Congress to become a part of such coalitions. However, sources close to Rahul disagree, saying that the DMK, Shibu Soren's JMM, Lalu's RJD, and Sharad Pawar's NCP, have been with the UPA before.
"The SP and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh are the new entrants, but the BJP is trying to malign the coalition for no reason," he said, adding that even Rahul thinks that regional parties are ideologically in sync with the Congress.
2019 will once again prove to be India Shining part-2 for the BJP, the source said, referring to the 2004 Atal Bihari Vajpayee campaign. "As far as the prime ministerial choice is concerned, the individual performance of parties will determine that," the source said.
BJP Not ‘Invincible’
Rahul Gandhi accepts that the Congress has a huge group of people scattered across the country, but the party needs to focus more on the "systematic" application of resources for better results. "We are determined, and saw a reflection of our efforts in Congress' performannce inn Gujarat," the source said.
The source said that Rahul Gandhi believes that the BJP's "supposed invincibility" was a creation of advertisement and nothing more than that. "And Congress' performance in Gujarat and Karnataka once again proved that the BJP can be defeated."
Congress a 'Blend of Young and Old'; Not Concerned About 'Pappu' Tag
The Congress President is said to have told everyone that he wasn't Narendra Modi who would throw all the senior leaders out of the party. According to the source, Rahul says that the Congress needs seasoned politicians such as Manmohan Singh, A K Antony, and P Chidambaram. "There should be a perfect mixture of youth's enthusiasm and experience of elders. What BJP did to Advani and Jaswant Singh was saddening," the source said.
On the question of BJP's unbridled attack on his image, the source said that the Gandhi scion isn't concerned about it at all. "They spend crores to tarnish my image, but I don't care. They used to refer to Indira Gandhi as a "dumb old lady," the source said, quoting Rahul.
This story was first published on The Quint Hindi and has been translated from there.
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