Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday said he personally favours Rahul Gandhi as Congress' prime ministerial candidate for 2014 Lok Sabha polls, echoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that the party vice-president will be an "ideal choice" for the top post.
"Manmohan Singh himself does not want to be the Prime Minister next time...I support Rahul Gandhi to become the Prime Minister. I am saying it openly and formally," Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati.
He, however, maintained that it was his personal choice and he had informed Congress president Sonia Gandhi about his preference. "She kept quiet after listening to my suggestion," the Chief Minister said.
The Prime Minister had recently said he will be "very happy" to work under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and described Rahul as an "ideal choice" for the top post after the Lok Sabha polls.
Gogoi also said he would love to work with Rahul as he had done earlier with Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. "I will not leave this family...Rahul's commitment is very high," he said.
Asked if the party high command has already taken a decision on Singh's future or Rahul's projection as the Congress prime ministerial candidate, Gogoi said "No, it has not taken (any) yet and I do not know when they will take it. I am only saying about my choice for Rahul."
On whether the 2014 election will be a fight between Rahul and Narendra Modi, he said, "Fight is not between individuals, it will be between Congress and BJP. The fight will take place between the leaderships."
Taking a dig at the Gujarat model of development, Gogoi said, "Gujarat's debt burden has increased by 207 per cent between 2001-02 and 2012-13, while the same went up by only 60 per cent in the case of Assam."
He said Assam's debt burden was Rs 11,700 crore in 2001-02 and it has gone up to Rs 18,792 crore in the last fiscal, while the same soared to Rs 1,38,987 crore in Gujarat from Rs 45,301 crore in 2001-02.
In Assam, the budgetary allocation for education is 19.5 per cent as against 15.9 per cent in Gujarat, he claimed. "The minimum daily wage for MGNREGA scheme in Assam is Rs 152. However, it is Rs 147 in Gujarat," Gogoi asserted.
Describing Modi as "the man for the capitalists and big industrialists," he claimed that industrialists "Tata, Ambani everyone supports him". Gogoi said, "Modi has become the darling of all the big corporates. He is giving thousands of crores of rupees concessions to big industrialists, but not doing anything for the poor people."
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