Often ridiculed, Rahul Gandhi emerges as strategic mastermind in LS polls

Says mandate against Modi, INDIA bloc to meet today to decide on future course

The INDIA bloc will meet on Wednesday to decide whether to approach former partners such as the JD (U) and the TDP to attempt government formation at the Centre, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said here.

“We are going to have a meeting with our partners. These questions will be raised and answered there,” Gandhi told a press conference at the party headquarters. He was replying to a question if the Congress and its allies will approach parties that are part of the NDA to try and form a government. Rahul Gandhi was addressing the press conference with senior Congress leaders as the Lok Sabha poll results and trends showed the BJP was set to become the single-largest party but would fall short of the magic figure of 272.

The Congress leader said the general election was a fight to save the Constitution.

“It was on my mind that the people of this country would rally together to save the Constitution. The first and biggest step towards saving the Constitution has been taken,” he said, adding that it was the poor and the marginalised who stood up. He said that the Congress and the INDIA bloc have given India a new vision, a pro-poor vision.

“The main thing this election has said, the country has said, is that we don’t want Narendra Modi, Amit Shah to be running this country,” he said. He said all Congress leaders respected INDIA bloc allies and wherever the alliance fought “we fought as one”.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said at the press conference that the public had given a “mandate against PM Modi’’.