Defending the Congress’ decision to not announce its prime ministerial candidate, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Infrastructure and Innovation Sam Pitroda said that the party would decide on it at “the right time”.
He was speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of the formal launch of the Institute of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology, of which he is the chairman, here on Sunday.
Mr. Pitroda said, “Just because the Bharatiya Janata Party has announced its candidate, it doesn’t mean that the Congress had to do the same. The Congress may decide even after the elections.”
Brushing aside predictions that the Congress would lose the elections, he said, “We will win. In 2004, there were headlines that we would lose badly. You can start rumours. The problem in India is people have outsourced their thinking. Corruption also sells.”
On the various scams during the UPA government that might ruin its prospects in the elections, he said, “Things were blown out of proportion.”
He defended the 2G spectrum allocation saying, “the government didn’t get money out of it; people did as call rates went down.”
Asked if lack of communication and marketing would cost the Congress dear in the elections, he said, “The Congress hasn’t done much marketing because the Prime Minister is not for it. The Ministers should speak. We have to take the message to the public and we haven’t done a good job. But, we have a lot of time. It was not advisable to talk too early,” he added.
