The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took a dig at Congress' Uttar Pradesh chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit on Friday saying that she was too old to win the elections in 2017 and Rahul Gandhi should fight the elections himself. The BJP Uttar Pradesh chief Keshav Prasad Mourya said that Rahul Gandhi should have been the candidate for the 2017 assembly elections.
The Congress declared Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial candidate earlier this month and the campaign for the assembly elections has begun. Prashant Kishor, the political strategist who won Nitish Kumar the Bihar assembly elections and Narendra Modi the prime ministerial position, was got on board for Congress' UP campaign.
"I would like to tell Rahul Gandhi that Sheila Dikshit is an elderly person. I think Rahul Gandhi should himself come forward for the chief ministerial post. He can never be the Prime Minister. He should fight for the post of chief minister," Mourya told ANI.
Dikshit, who served as the chief minister of Delhi for three terms, was ousted in 2013 by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, who rode on an anti-UPA, anti-incumbency wave the first time he won the elections. She had initially been reluctant to fight the elections.
Kishor reportedly had said that unlike Congress' previous practice of not projecting a chief ministerial candidate for elections, the UP elections would necessitate a strong and formidable leader to be projected for the position.
Mourya on Friday said that Gandhi should fight the elections himself if he thinks his party can do something in the state. Uttar Pradesh had been a Congress bastion and was the home state for the Nehru-Gandhi family.
Everyone knows what his (Rahul Gandhi's) family has done with the nation in the last 60 years. I don't see a situation of comeback of the Congress in UttarPradesh at a time when the people of UttarPradesh have rejected it. Otherwise, I don't have any objection if he wants to do something on behalf of his party," he added.
