LS Elections: Mallikarjun Kharge dismisses talk of senior leaders shying away from contesting polls

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday rejected suggestions that senior party leaders are shying away from contesting the Lok Sabha polls and said that if workers ask him to fight the elections he may do so.

He, however, indicated that he may not enter the poll fray this time with age being a factor.

Kharge was the MP from Karnataka’s Gulbarga from 2009-2014 and had lost from the same seat in 2019.

Asked about reports that senior leaders were opting out of contesting the Lok Sabha polls, Kharge said, “It is wrong that we are backing out. I am 83-years-old, you (journalists) retire at 65…So I am 83.”

“If given a chance, everyone goes and tells our party workers (that I should fight)…if they say then I will definitely fight. Look, sometimes we are at the back, sometimes we are ar the forefront, we also have a list of ten people asking for the same seat,” he said.

On another question about the comparison between Modi’s guarantee and that of the Congress, Kharge said, “They stole our guarantee. We started in Karnataka, won the elections, later we did it in Telangana. …Modi Saheb is stealing our guarantee and saying ‘this is our guarantee’.”