Modi targets Rahul on 'ready to be PM' remark

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday lashed out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he publicly declared his prime ministerial ambition, and wondered whether the country will ever accept such an “immature and naamdar (famous)” leader for the post. 

“The naamdar who does not have confidence in his alliance partners... who doesn’t care for Congress’s internal democracy, whose arrogance has reached cloud seven, and is declaring himself that he would be the prime minister in 2019... will the country ever accept such an immature ‘naamdar’ leader?” Modi told an election rally in Karnataka’s Bangarpet. 

Modi’s attack came a day after Gandhi said he was ready to occupy the prime minister’s post if his party emerged as the “biggest” party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, making known his ambition for the topmost executive post. 

“Yesterday in Karnataka and India’s politics something happened. All of a sudden one person came and he declared... did not care about others who are standing in the line. Did not care about other coalition partners. 

“There are leaders waiting for 40 years… he came all of a sudden and placed his bucket, and said I will become the prime minister,” Modi said during the final lap of his campaign blitz in election-bound Karnataka, where voting will be held on May 12. 

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The prime minister asked the gathering whether it was not a reflection of the Congress president’s “arrogance”. 

He also wanted to know whether it did not show the state of internal democracy in the Congress party. 

Speaking about attempts to forge and anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front,Modi said, “Big, big meetings are happening, big, big stalwarts are meeting” to remove him from power, but keeping them all in the dark Gandhi declared he will be the prime minister. 

“Doesn’t this show the level of no-confidence within the (proposed) coalition?” he asked. 

Continuing his tirade against the Congress, he called it a “deal party.” 

Modi said during Manmohan Singh’s tenure as the prime minister, the remote control of the government was with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but in the four years of the his rule, the remote was with people. 

He also said “Congress culture, communalism, casteism, crime, corruption and contract system” were the six Cs “destroying” Karnataka’s future. 

Modi told the crowd that it was now Karnataka’s turn to bid “goodbye” to the Congress.