Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of CPI(M), on Tuesday rejected the idea of projecting anyone as the Prime Minister in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Yechury was attending a meeting with DMK president M.K. Stalin at the latter’s Alwarpet residence in Chennai. Yechury addressed journalists after the meeting. Responding to a question about projecting Rahul Gandhi as the opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Yechury said, “India is a Parliamentary democracy and not a Presidential form.”
“Our Constitution is Parliamentary democracy and only elected members of Parliament can elect the Prime Minister. Not you and me,” he added.
After discussing with Stalin the need to have a secular front, Yechury said, “more than the attitude of the leaders, it is people from the ground who will push all the leaders to come together to save India, and it will happen.”
Responding to a query whether the CPI(M) would be part of an alliance in which the Congress and the Trinamool Congress were members, he said alliances in India would take place at the state level first. “Then, on that basis, the national alliance will emerge. In Tamil Nadu, we have decided that we will be with the DMK-led front in the forthcoming elections,” he said.
Yechury is not the only one to reject the idea of projecting Rahul Gandhi as Prime Ministerial candidate. BSP had earlier made it clear that Rahul Gandhi cannot aspire to become the Prime Minister of the country because of his mother’s foreign origin. A similar view was expressed by Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) minister Kalava Srinivasulu, who said that if the party goes for pre-poll alliance then the party will not accept Congress President Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2019 elections.
Becoming the Prime Ministerial candidate from a grand alliance in the upcoming 2019 elections seems not just a just a distant but an impossible dream for Rahul Gandhi.
