New Delhi: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh today said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains a challenge for the party which was ousted from the Centre in May 2014 because of his popularity.
Speaking to reporters, the former union minister said that the party should directly attack him by highlighting the failures of his two-year-old government and the scams of his tenure as the chief minister of Gujarat.
"He remains a challenge. We have to take him on directly. In the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) scam the issue is Modi and it is a Rs 20,000 crore scam,” the Congress leader said.
Ramesh also said that in the last two years since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister there has been a "vast gap" between what was promised and delivered and what was said and done and the opposition needed to "exploit" it fully.
A known detractor of Modi, Ramesh said that while taking on the Prime Minister the Congress needs to understand that the party is fighting an ideological battle which is completely different.
Nothing moves within the BJP and government without the blessings and approval of the Prime Minister, he said.
"To think that Modi is different is not correct. All happenings in HRD, rewriting of textbooks, erosion of autonomy of IITs. These are all Modi's blessings," he added.
He also said that BJP’s new MP in Rajya Sabha, Subramanian Swamy enjoys full support of the Prime Minister.
“Not a leaf moves within BJP and government without Modi's blessings and approval," he said referring to Swamy, who dragged the Gandhi family to the court in National Herald case.
Ramesh was the first Congress leader who had said in 2013, a year before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi poses both a "managerial as also an ideological challenge" for the party which was then ruling at the Centre.
With PTI Inputs
