Amid reports about senior Ministers’ reluctance to contest the lok Sabha polls fearing a backlash in their parliamentary constituencies, Union Minister Anand Sharma on Friday said it should be seen in the perspective of senior leaders in all political parties paving the way for the younger generation.
At the same time, projecting the 2014 lok Sabha polls as a “battle of ideologies”, the Congress leader said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi will criss-cross the country to give a “robust” response to the Opposition’s campaign against the UPA.
“The Congress is neither scared, nor it can be intimidated or is weak... the Congress is ready for the battle. We are the last one to vacate the space... We are the largest pan-India political party. We have seen many ups and downs,” Anand Sharma said at an AICC briefing on Friday.
The Union Commerce Minister was responding to questions whether the party has given up the fight even before the elections as senior leaders are shying away from contesting and many old leaders are deserting the party.
Accusing the BJP of pursuing a policy of “majoritarianism” and carrying out personality politics, he said the main Opposition party has “vitiated” the political discourse under a strategy to put every decision taken by the Government under question mark and “drown the truth into the noise of allegations”.
Sharma said senior Minister P Chidambaram wants to field his son Karti from his seat Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu. He cited the example of Jayant Sinha, son of senior BJP leader and former Finance Minister of NDA government Yashwant Sinha, in this regard.