CHANDIGARH, 28 May: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge dismissed the BJP’s ‘400 paar’ claim as “bakwas”, or nonsense, and said that the party will not cross 200 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing the media in Amritsar, Kharge said that the BJP’s seats are declining as compared to the last elections, while the Congress and the INDIA bloc aremaking gains.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has been claiming that it will get over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
Replying to a question on it, Kharge asked the basis of such claims by the BJP. “When your (seats) are declining and ours are increasing. Forget ‘400 paar’, it is ‘bakwas’. They cannot even form the government and will not go beyond 200 seats,” said Kharge.
Kharge said that the BJP is “non-existent” in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana and “not strong” in Karnataka.
“You are weak in Maharashtra, while in West Bengal and Odisha, there is a fight. How are you getting 400 seats?” he asked.
Replying to union Home Minister Amit Shah’s jibe that Kharge “will lose his job” after Congress’s defeat in the elections, Kharge said, “I joined politics not for doing a job. I have been in politics to serve (people) since childhood, almost for as many years now as (PM Narendra) Modi’s age,” the Congress leader said.
“He should think about his own job after 4 June,” Kharge added.
The Congress chief also reiterated the party’s poll promises for the Lok Sabha on farm debt waiver and the legal guarantee on minimum support price of crops, even as he attacked the BJP-led central government over the unemployment issue and the Agnipath scheme.
There are 30 lakh vacancies in the central government, all of which will be filled up if the INDIA bloc forms the government, he said.
Speaking on the drug addiction problem among youths, Kharge said that several steps will be taken to stop it.
On the BJP’s charge that the Congress manifesto bears the imprint of the Muslim League, Kharge said, “Modi does not look at our manifesto or read it. I said this earlier if he finds the imprint of the Muslim League in this. We will send one person from the Congress office to help him explain it for him.”
He said that the party manifesto is for the youths, farmers, labourers and the weaker sections. (PTI)