| ‘There can be many claimants, but none can hold a candle to him’ |
Our leader: In a gracious act highlighting the importance of Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi covers her own photograph on a copy of the party’s manifesto released in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Ms. Gandhi made the assertion after releasing the party manifesto that packages the Congress as the only national party with a country-wide perspective that can strike a balance between national and regional interests by walking the “middle path.”
The manifesto pitches the “secular, liberal nationalism” of the Congress against the BJP’s “narrow communalism” and describes the Third Front as a “recipe for chaos.”
Among the key promises made are the enactment of a National Food Security Act that assures 25 kg of rice a month to every below poverty line family at Rs. 3 a kg and one-third reservation for women in central government jobs.
Ms. Gandhi said the nation needed stability, continuity and national unity and Dr. Singh alone could rise to the challenge. “There can be many claimants for the post, but no one can hold a candle to him.”
Confident that the Congress would do well at the hustings despite problems with some allies, she pointed out the party had new allies in West Bengal besides the old ones in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
As for problems with allies in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, she said: ``We decided to fight on our own only after we couldn’t come to an understanding with the RJD and the Samajwadi Party.”
About reports of the PMK leaving the UPA, she maintained that it was part of the ruling coalition as of date.
On whether the Congress would support the Left parties or take their support to form a government, she was non-committal; saying, “Let’s wait for the elections.” She was only slightly less vague to a question on Rahul Gandhi taking charge of the party with a “wait and see” response.
Drawn into responding to a BJP observation that its Pilibhit candidate Varun Gandhi’s communal comments were a manifestation of the Congress culture, she shot back that no sane person who knew history would ever attribute such a view to the party.
