Congress will win a third term, says Rahul

Gandhi: “The BJP believes in concentration of power in the hands of one person.”

Agencies/New Delhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi forecast an unlikely victory for his beleaguered party in upcoming elections as he gave his first ever television interview yesterday.

The 43-year-old de facto prime ministerial candidate of the ruling party linked opposition Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi with religious riots in Gujarat in 2002.

And dismissing polls which show his party heading for an electoral humiliation, Gandhi declared he was “reasonably confident” about securing a third consecutive term for the Congress.

“I will win the election,” Gandhi told Times Now.

His comments come after a weekend survey showed the graft-tainted Congress, which has ruled India for the last decade, would win just 92 to 108 seats in elections due by May, down from 204 it holds now.

Gandhi has kept a low profile since entering politics as an MP in 2004, rarely speaking in or outside of parliament, and refusing various opportunities to join the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

His great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was India’s first prime minister, while his grandmother and father were also prime ministers. His mother Sonia is current president of the Congress Party.

Gandhi said he was against the idea of hereditary power, despite a victory for the Congress meaning that he would almost certainly become prime minister.

“I am absolutely against the concept of dynasty, anybody who knows me knows that and understands that,” he told the combative news anchor Arnab Goswami.

“But you are not going to wish away dynasty in a closed system, you have to open the system,” he added.

On Gujarat Chief Minister Modi, whose BJP is poised to win between 211 and 231 seats in the 552-seat Lok Sabha, the lower decision-making house of parliament according to the latest survey, Gandhi sought to link him personally to riots in 2002.

The violence in Gujarat, which Modi has ruled since 2001, left up to 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead and Modi was accused of turning a blind eye to the bloodletting.

He has never been found guilty and investigations have cleared him of personal wrong-doing.

“The Gujarat riots took place, people died, Mr Narendra Modi was in charge of Gujarat at that point,” Gandhi said.

He added that “the government in Gujarat was actually abetting and pushing the riots further.”

Maya Kodnani, who Modi later made a minister in his cabinet, was found guilty of abetting the riots in 2012.

Outgoing Prime Minister Singh recently slammed Modi, saying that his reputation for decisive leadership was undermined by him “presiding over the massacre of innocent citizens.”

Gandhi warned earlier this month of an opposition trying to split India on religious lines.

In his interview, he accused Modi of running the BJP like a one-man show, relying on his charisma rather than any particular policies.

“The BJP believes in concentration of power in the hands of one person. I fundamentally disagree with that. I believe in democracy, I believe in opening up the system,” Gandhi said.

Critics deride Gandhi as a political lightweight who depends on his family name for power and has barely registered his presence in parliament despite being a member for the last decade.

Until now he has struggled to show he can follow in his family’s footsteps as a statesman and orator who can win over a new generation of voters.

During the interview, which lasted more than an hour, Gandhi underscored the achievements of the Congress in office, and focused his message on empowering women, making institutions more transparent, and protecting the poor. He said he wanted to turn India into a manufacturing powerhouse like China.