Captain backs Rahul Gandhi as Opposition PM candidate

New Delhi: Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday backed Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate of a joint opposition alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At the extended meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), he also supported party leader P. Chidambaram’s views on the need for a broad-based alliance with other parties.

Mr Singh said Mr Gandhi was fully competent to lead the country and would surely prove to be a successful prime minister. He said the Congress should explore all alliance possibilities for next year's Lok Sabha elections and Rahul should lead the joint opposition front to oust the ‘divisive’ BJP-led NDA from power.

“The alignments will have to happen at the national level. Whatever call the national leadership will take on alliances and whatever they decide will apply to the states,” he said at Parliament House Annexe. On whether he was open to an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party  (AAP), which the Congress had routed in Punjab, he said, “This is a decision to be taken at the national level. The alliances will be dependent on where the central leadership takes us. And wherever it takes us, we will go.”

Mr Singh also said the alliance at the national level should be made as big as possible to include many players to take on and defeat the BJP. He said that he supported former Mr Chidambaram, who told the CWC that the Congress would have to enter broad-based alliances to win the 2019 elections.  “I endorse what Mr Chidambaram has said. I think he said a very good thing, that we should bring in as many people in the Opposition together as possible,” he added. All like-minded parties who want to restore India's glorious secular and harmonious character should get together in their collective interest, and more importantly in the interest of the country, Mr Singh said. To a question on Punjab’s mood, the CM said it was in favour of the Congress.

Pointing that the Congress had won Gurdaspur and Shahkot with record margins in recent months, he expressed confidence that the party would win hands down in the parliamentary elections. “I have promised them (the high command) Punjab, and will give it to them,” he said.