Bengaluru: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asserted BJP would not win the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi might lose from Varanasi under a 'united' opposition.
He predicted a “collapse” not “seen in many years” for the current dispensation and exuded confidence over roping in and managing alliance partners despite their varied personal and regional aspirations.
Gandhi was having an informal interaction with the media here on the conclusion of his sixth leg of campaign for the May 12 Karnataka assembly polls.
Pegging his confidence on opposition unity, he said far from the BJP winning the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, even Modi might lose from Varanasi if Congress, SP and BSP were united against him.
“Frankly, I don't see BJP winning the next election, so in 2019 we will go back to the normal, I sense,” he said in reply to a question on “Dalit anger”.
“Because there are two basic things, once opposition unity goes above a certain level, it becomes impossible to win elections. Now the opposition unity has gone to a point. It's simple,” he said.
Pointing to opposition unity efforts in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and by DMK, Trinamul and Nationalist Congress Party, Gandhi asked, “Where are they (BJP) going to win seats?” And in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab. We will take it over.”
“You are going to see a collapse of the style you haven't seen in many years,” he said.
To a question doubting the forging of opposition unity amid varied aspirations of each party and their leaders, Gandhi expressed confidence of overcoming it.
“We will manage it. We in Congress know how to carry people, we are not egotistical people, we don't crush people and we don't destroy people's lives, so we will manage it,”he said. The basic thing is how to get the country out of the “mess that Modi and RSS has put it in,” he said.
