Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday dared Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi to become prime minister.
"Let Rahul take the prime minister's seat; the whole country will see what he is capable of doing and how much capability he has to run the country," Prasad told a press conference in Lucknow.
"There is not much that he is required to do for riding on to the PM's office. All that Rahul needs to do is to ask Manmohan Singh to step down and then go and occupy the chair," said Prasad. "The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) still has two years to go, so let him show what mettle he has," Prasad added.
Prasad was reacting to his Congress counterpart Abhishek Manu Singhvi's remark, "Rahul's leadership in the Uttar Pradesh elections has come like a storm to take the Congress party on the road to victory."
'BJP has realised ground reality that Cong will ride to power'
Photographs: Pawan Kumar/Reuters
Out to run down the Gandhi scion, the BJP spokesman said, "I would like to cite an example of what Rahul's much hyped campaign did at the state assembly elections in Bihar."
"The Congress lost its deposit in 17 of the 22 places that he led the party's campaign, while its overall tally came down from 9 to 5," he added.
Reacting sharply to Prasad's observations, Congress spokesman Singhvi, who was also in town, said, "The BJP leader's statement reflects how clearly his party has realised the ground reality that Congress is all set to ride on to power in UP in 2012 and will be back in power at the centre too in 2014."
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