After the drubbing Congress received in the elections in four states, Gandhi had said that the name of the prime ministerial candidate would be announced at at opportune time. “You can't have PM candidate after election. It has to be earlier than that,” he said.
Speaking to news channels, Singh admitted there was an anti-Congress wave, but claimed that it was confined to some of the states where assembly elections were held recently. He said it was a challenge for Congress to re-connect with people, but expressed hope about the party returning to power in 2014, though he termed the prospect as “more difficult”.
“Congress has just lost connect with the people. We have to re-establish it,” he said. The Congress leader, however, recalled that the party was written off in 2004 and 2009 polls as well but it had surprised political pundits by capturing power at the Centre both times.
“It (rejecting Congress) is the mood of the people in state polls... Don't write us off,” he said, adding that the rout in states was probably because the party did not have credible leadership there.
He also took a dig at Cabinet Minister Sharad Pawar for his statement that the weak leadership in Delhi was the reason behind the poor show of Congress.
“Pawar is a member of Cabinet not Congress. He has been in Dr Manmohan Singh's ministry for 10 years. He must know what he was in for all these years,” he said.
When asked if the poor performance of Manmohan Singh's government was behind the party's debacle in Delhi polls, where incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit lost and Congress was reduced to eight seats, he said the Centre's poor response in the December 16 gangrape may have played a role. “The government should have acted more decisively in the gangrape case,” he said, while asserting that Dikshit ran a good government for 15 years.
