Rahul Im confident Left will support PM

Rahul Im confident Left will support PM

NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he was sure that the UPA would form the next government at the Centre. “We will form the government,” he said, while addressing a press conference in New Delhi. ( Watch )Confident that the Congress would return to power, he claimed the BJP-led NDA was finished on the ground. "But in a democracy, if it so happens, we have no choice," he said in reply to a question whether Congress would sit in the opposition. Significantly, Rahul gave clear signals of working with the Left parties in the post-poll scenario, saying Congress is always open to post-poll alliances. He added he was confident that Left will support Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Asked if Congress would support the Left parties, which had supported the UPA for over four years, in forming the government, Rahul Gandhi appeared to be sarcastic when he said "we will consider that if the Left gets 180-190 MPs. We will consider them. I hope they are able to achieve that. If they do, I will be first person to say let us support Left". Gandhi was asked whether the Congress would consider a post-poll tie up again with the Left for forming the government in case of a hung verdict. "....on a lot of concepts we agree with the Left like education and health. There is a lot of meeting ground with the Left. There is absolutely no meeting ground with BJP for what they did in Gujarat and Karnataka and burnt Christians in Orissa. There is a lot of common ground to do with the Left. There is a reasonable amount of common space," he replied. Referring to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CB) removing Bofors accused Quattrocchi from its ‘most wanted’ list, Rahul said, “Quattrocchi issue is a dead issue. There is no interest in it.” Referring to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CB) removing Bofors accused Quattrocchi from its ‘most wanted’ list, Rahul said, “Quattrocchi issue is a dead issue. There is no interest in it.”