Results of October 8 Assembly polls will mark countdown to PM Modis departure, says Jairam Ramesh

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday (September 30, 2024) expressed confidence that his party would form governments in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, while asserting that the election verdict in Assembly on October 8 would mark the “countdown” to Prime Minister Narendra. Modi’s “exit” from the Centre.

In an interview with PTIhe also accused the BJP of injecting “vitamin P for polarization” during the Assembly election campaign for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, and said the people would give him a ” thumbs down” as he had done during the Lok Sabha polls. .

“June 4, 2024 (Lok Sabha poll results) was the first signal that the time of non-biological Prime Minister is over and I think October 8 will be the second signal, and sometime in November, the third signal will come when elections are held for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,” he said.

“As far as Haryana and J&K are concerned, I think it is very clear that the Congress is going to get a very clear and decisive mandate in Haryana and in J&K, where it is in alliance with the National Conference. is the countdown to the release of non-biological PM,” Mr. Ramesh said.

Asked about the BJP's recent talk that 'PoK will be part of Jammu and Kashmir' and the mention of Pakistan in the election campaign, the Congress general secretary said this was nothing new and was part of the BJP’s “communal propaganda”.

The BJP does not realize that the words it uses at the time for its national election campaigns have huge foreign policy implications, he said.

The remarks made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah about the people of Bangladesh have become a “big irritant and sore point” in bilateral relations with the neighboring country, Ramesh claimed.

“So foreign policy is a foreign policy on which there is broad continuity and consensus in India, but the BJP has made foreign policy an instrument of domestic political campaigning which is not going to help us in our foreign policy. “It certainly won't help them nationally,” Mr. Ramesh said.

“I am not surprised that they are trying to inject a highly polarized agenda, but it is not just in J&K, they are doing it in state after state. They only know vitamin P for polarization. They believe in two vitamins P – P for polarization and P for potency,” Mr. Ramesh said.

But polarization has not worked in 2024 and on June 4, when the people of India have given their “decisive rejection” to polarization, the same will happen in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, said the Congress leader.

“They (BJP) are going to do it in Maharashtra as well and Himanta Biswa Sarma, who will be their star campaigner in Jharkhand, has increased the polarization there,” he said.

“This is the only oxygen they (the BJP) have. This is the only campaign they know,” Mr. Ramesh said.

Asked about the impact of the October 8 poll results, Ramesh said it would make the prime minister's position “more fragile”.

“Of course, it all depends on the reaction of Andhra Chief Minister (N Chandrababu Naidu) and Bihar CM (Nitish Kumar). Then we will also have the election results from Maharashtra and Jharkhand, where he is clear that the Congress, in alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (in Maharashtra) and with the JMM and the Left (in Jharkhand) are certainly ahead,” he said.

“I think it's going to be a big dhakka (setback), June 4 was a 'dhakka' (setback), October 8 is going to be a 'dhakka', the end of November will be a 'dhakka'. These are all exit signs for the Prime Minister,” Mr. Ramesh said

Asked if he thought the BJP-led NDA government would not last till the end of its term, Ramesh said the Prime Minister could not function with a policy of consensus, cooperation and of compromise.

“He has no channel of communication with the opposition parties. So I think all this is going to make his position much more untenable than it is now. You can see it in his face, in the way he speaks. I don't want to If you say anything more, it will make the government even more nervous than it is now,” the Congress general secretary said.

Elections in Jammu and Kashmir are being held in three phases. Voting for 24 seats took place in the first phase on September 18. The next phase of voting for 26 seats took place on September 25.

Polling for the Haryana Assembly elections is scheduled to take place on October 5. The counting of votes will take place with Jammu and Kashmir on October 8.