Acrimonious campaign in Vijayapura as Sonia Gandhi, PM Modi trade barbs

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he was ready to become prime minister if the Congress emerges as the single-largest party in the next general elections, PTI reported.

“If the Congress party is the biggest party, then yes”, Gandhi said, responding to a question at an interaction in Bengaluru.

Addressing a road show flanked by scores of supporters, Siddaramaiah mistakenly asked people to vote for Narendra Modi, instead of Narendra Swamy, the Congress candidate for whom the CM was campaigning.

He said Rahul Gandhi would go down in history as the party leader who has faced the highest number of defeats.

On the first day of the election campaign, Modi challenged Rahul Gandhi to give a 15-minute speech without reading out from a piece of paper.

Without naming him, Modi referred to Water Resources Minister MB Patil, who hails from Vijayapura district, and said, “Here everyone knows about his deeds, how contracts are awarded, what is his relationship with contractors and how bundles of notes were found from the almirahs of contractors”.

Opinion polls have forecast no clear victor between the Congress and the BJP and suggested that a regional group, the Janata Dal (S), may emerge as kingmaker in the 225-member state assembly. “Leave Congress-free India, he can not even tolerate anyone in front of him”, Gandhi said in her first rally in about two years.

Gandhi said, “Modi ji has insulted the farmers and people of Karnataka”. She also took the base of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme and said this scheme was objected by the BJP & by Modi Ji. She said, “Is this your “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”?” He said, “I have not been able to understand why the Karnataka Chief Minister is angry with Bengaluru, and that has handed over the city to an infamous trio of ministers”. They were also asked to measure the impact of various programs on GDP growth, said the people, who asked not to be identified, citing rules. The Supreme Court judges have themselves mentioned the [Justice] Loya case.

The Modi government has set out to destroy all the good work done by the Congress, she claimed, adding that the prime minister was only obsessed with the idea of a “Congress-mukt Bharat”. So, I don’t think Amit Shah has much of credibility. “So, I don’t think Amit Shah has lot of credibility”. This is fundamental. “People inIndia forget that the president of BJP is a murder accused”.