We’re ready for early polls, people will give BJP befitting reply: Congress

By: Express News Service | New Delhi | Published:October 6, 2017 4:56 am

The Congress believes the government is planning to advance the Lok Sabha elections and sync it with several state elections towards the end of 2018. The main Opposition party also said it was prepared for early elections, and argued that the people would punish the BJP for not fulfilling the grand pre-poll promises it made in 2014.

A day after Election Commissioner O P Rawat said the poll panel would be logistically capable of holding simultaneous polls to state assemblies and the Lok Sabha by September next year, the Congress said the EC would not have signalled its readiness without an indication from the government.

“The Election Commission must have been sounded out by the current government that they were going to advance the Parliament polls… we are prepared to face elections at any time,” Congress communication department head Randeep Surjewala said.

Several Congress leaders had been of the view that the government could advance the Lok Sabha polls and hold it along with Assembly polls in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by the end of next year. “They could also advance Assembly polls in states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha and hold it along with Lok Sabha polls,” a senior leader said.

Surjewala said the people are “fed up with PM Narendra Modi and his jumlas and the way his government is going about decimating jobs, businesses as also trade and agriculture. So, I think the people of this country will give a befitting reply just like they had given in 2004… The people are waiting for elections to happen so that they can actually ask Modi where are the achhe din”.

The Congress hit out at Modi for saying that a handful of people were spreading pessimism based on the economic slowdown in the last quarter. “The symbol of pessimism and mismanagement in this country is none less than the PM himself. Whatever he touches, be it economy or anything else, is sinking,” Surjewala said.

Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/were-ready-for-early-polls-people-will-give-bjp-befitting-reply-congress-4876671/