New Delhi: An upbeat Rahul Gandhi affirmed that Congress-led UPA III will win the next Lok Sabha elections. Acknowledging that after 10 years in power “there is a certain amount of anti-incumbency against us”.
“Congress is fighting a challenging election,” he said while refusing to hazard a guess about the number of seats the party would get. “I am not a soothsayer but we will do well,” he told a news agency in an exclusive interview. Â
Debunking opinion polls, which he had described as a joke, Gandhi said the party would do better than the 2009 elections when it had won 206 seats. Predictions before 2004 and 2009 elections also were that the Congress was going to lose and get thrashed, he recalled.
Gandhi lashed out against Narendra Modi and demanded “legal accountability” for the “clear and inexcusable failure” of governance during the 2002 Gujarat riots and dismissed talk of clean chit to him as “politically expedient” but “far too premature”.
Contending that Modi was answerable on moral grounds as Chief Minister, Gandhi said, “Beyond that there should be a legal accountability for the clear and inexcusable failure of governance under him”.
Gandhi was answering a question on BJP’s contention that Modi had been given a clean chit by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT and the courts and, therefore, he had nothing to answer for or apologise for about the post-Godhra riots.
He replied, “As you know, the SIT report had been seriously questioned by a number of credible experts. Grave flaws have been pointed out in the functioning of the SIT.
The acceptance of the flawed SIT report by the lowest court has not yet been subjected to judicial scrutiny by higher courts.
“The specific allegation and evidence pointing to Mr Modi’s responsibility in the 2002 riots are yet to be adequately probed. Any talk of his having been given a clean chit may be politically expedient, but is far too premature.
“There are many unanswered questions. There is a lot more the country needs to know,” he said.
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