Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged on Sunday that the Congress party considered BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi a “challenger.”
“As a political party, we acknowledge that he [Modi] is a challenger. We cannot ignore him. He is a candidate fielded by the principal Opposition party. We have to take note of him,” he said during an interaction at ‘ThinkFest’ event currently on in Goa.
The Minister, however, said that as an individual he was concerned about Mr. Modi’s ideology, philosophy and the kind of language he was using at public rallies. “So far he is extremely opaque. So far he has not spoken on any of the major issues. He has just made election promises,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
He said the rank and file of the Congress party felt that Rahul Gandhi should be the leader of the party and leader of the government, if the Congress was voted to power in the coming general elections. “I feel that the time has come to hand over the torch to the younger generation,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
