Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Rajesh Pilot has said that no Congressman was keen to form the government at the Centre and that every partyman's first priority was to strengthen the Congress.
In an interview to private television channel Home TV, Pilot has also said that his party did not want to be consulted by the United Front (UF) government over the Budget because we are not involved in policy making, we are not responsible for their politics.
The Congress leader did not think that the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) was keen to join the Congress. They (TMC) are good friends and whenever we meet for some get-together I don't feel that they are that encouraged to join Congress or come back, he said when asked whether TMC was keen to rejoin.
More From This Section
On whether Congress should seek to replace the UF government or wait for a fresh mandate before forming an administration, he replied: I am of the view that the Congress should not consider power as a factor. Congress is a 110-year-old party. The party should be strengthened first. Our aim is to strengthen the Congress, recover the ground where we have lost it. As far as forming the government is concerned, I am of the view that no Congressman is keen to form the government. Everyone wants to strengthen the party first, he said. This is Pilot's first major interview after he unsuccessfully attempted for a contest for the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) last month when former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao was forced by his colleagues to step down as the CPP leader.
Pilot told Home TV that it was unfortunate that different Congressmen were saying different things about the party's support to the UF government.
He said that no matter what position the CPP executive committee took in its meeting on January 24, the decision to support the UF government was of the party's working committee and only the CWC could change it. Asked about former defence minister and senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar's demand that the UF government should consult the Congress about the Budget, Pilot said that it was contrary to the basis on which the CWC had extended support to the government.
Pilot said that under the present circumstances, Congress needed collective leadership and the best way of establishing this was through democratic internal elections.
He also added that it was only because he was an elected member of the CWC that his colleagues allowed him to speak as he wanted in party forums.
He was firm in his belief that the election of the CPP leader should have been by secret ballot and that the party had committed a mistake by not doing so.
Pilot was frank in expressing his views on corruption charges against his colleagues in the previous Congress government. He said that his party had suffered because of such charges. A message has gone around that people have done terrible things, he said adding that and it is true.
Today, Rs 4 crore is found in someone's house and he is not prepared to say whose it is or where it has come from, Pilot said and made it clear that he was ashamed to have served as a Congressman alongside Sukh Ram in the Rao government.