Rahul Gandhi exclusive: We are coming to power, Narendra Modi and BJP will be decimated

By India Today Web Desk

With weeks to go before the results of the general election are made public, Congress president Rahul Gandhi sounds confident about the UPA’s chances        of returning to power in New Delhi.  Here’s what he told India Today magazine in a recent exclusive interview.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rahul Gandhi confident that Congress will be back in power soon
• Says he hasn’t decided whether he will retain Wayanad or Amethi
• On PM ambitions, says he is happy with whomever voters choose

May 02, 2019 – Rahul Gandhi minces no words when he offers his forecast for counting day. “We’re most definitely coming to power,” he recently told India Today magazine in an exclusive interview. Will the Congress do that on its own or with allies?

“I’m not a soothsayer, I can’t predict the future,” he said. “But Mr Modi is not winning the election, the BJP is not winning the election. The Congress-led UPA is coming to power.”

Five years ago, the UPA was ousted by voters after a decade in power; it was trounced by a BJP galvanised by a wave of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat. Modi recently said the Congress won’t even get 50 seats in the current general election.

Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, spoke of a “massive undercurrent” as he dismissed the idea that the he was really planning for 2024. “Mr Narendra Modi and the BJP are going to be decimated,” the Congress president told India Today.

Gandhi, 48, is contesting two races in this general election — the first of them, in Kerala’s Wayanad, is already over. His current constituents in UP’s Amethi vote on May 6. If he manages to win both seats, he can only retain one. He says he hasn’t decided which one.

“I will take the decision when the time comes.”

Would Rahul Gandhi like to be the prime minister?

His answer: “Who am I to decide that?”

Is he ready for the top job? “Again, who am I to say that? About 900 million people are casting their votes, it’s up to them to decide. Whomever they choose, I’m happy with that. Frankly, the decision the Indian people take on May 23 [the day on which votes will be counted] will be the right one, regardless of what happens,” Rahul Gandhi said.

“That is the right decision, and I will respect it. It doesn’t matter what they do, that is the right decision. That’s what it means to be India.”