The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Kharge: After June 4, INDIA bloc is going to replace Modi-shah
CONGRESS PRESIDENT Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday criticised Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent remarks stating that the former will lose his job after the results for Lok Sabha elections are announced on June 4, saying that “it will be people from the INDIA bloc who will replace (Narendra) Modi-shah”.
Addressing a press conference in Amritsar, Kharge said, “Shah sahab is worried... I read in the newspapers he is saying Kharge sahab will lose his job after June 4... I have not come into politics to do a naukri (job). I have come to do seva (social work).”
“The age of (PM Narendra) Modi... I have been in service longer...asanmlaandasanmp.anyway, he (Shah) is going to lose his job. He is right when he says I am going to lose my job. His position is going to be empty and we are going to take those jobs,” he said.
Earlier, on X, he posted: “...His job is going to be vacant and then it will be us from INDIA bloc who will take Modi and Shah’s job.”
In UP’S Kushinagar Monday, Shah had claimed the “bhai-behen (brother and sister) duo of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will not take responsibility for the Congress’ defeat in the Lok Sabha elections” and it instead will be the party’s chief Mallikarjun Kharge and the EVMS who will be blamed.
Kharge, Shah claimed, will even lose his job and that “Rahul Gandhi’s people” will also hold a press conference after the polls, saying they lost due to EVMS.
On Tuesday, Kharge also dismissed the BJP’S ‘400 paar’ claim as “bakwas (nonsense)” and said the party will not cross 200 seats.
“On what basis do they say they are crossing 400 (seats). You have no existence in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana. Your existence in Karnataka is 50-50. You are weak in Maharashtra and everywhere else. You are not in the first in West Bengal, Odisha. Then, how are you getting 400 seats?” he said.
“The one seat we had in Karnataka, we are getting 10-15 there. We had 2 in Telangana and there we are getting 8-10... We are going above zero. We are getting your seats only... When your seats are decreasing and ours are increasing, that means you can forget 400,” he said. Slamming the BJP over the farmers’ protests in 2020-21, he said, “I thank the people of Punjab for fighting against the government... the three farm laws had to be withdrawn by Modi.”