External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said Manmohan Singh, "quite justifiably", is the Congress prime ministerial candidate and there can be no other claimant to the post.
"As already announced, quite justifiably, Mr Singh is the party's prime ministerial candidate and our party's decision is that at this time there can be no other claimant to the post of Prime Minister," Mukherjee told a Bengali TVs phone-in programme last night where his party's new ally Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee was also present.
"This is so because he(Manmohan) has run the country efficiently for the past five years and enhanced the country's prestige in the comity of nations," he added.
"And, with due respect and humility to Opposition parties, I want to state here, that there is no leader who can match him and stake claim for the post of the Prime Minister," he said in an obvious reference to BJP leader L K Advani's barbs about Singh being a weak PM.
"More so, in the present global economic meltdown, only an economist of Manmohan Singh's stature is fit to be the Prime Minister and lead the nation of 112 crore people," he said when a questioner said that the people of Bengal would like to see him as prime minister and Banerjee as chief minister of the state.
He said that the alliance forged with the Trinamool Congress for the Lok Sabha election in Bengal to fight the ruling Left Front would be extended to the assembly elections in the state due in 2011.
"I am confident that the alliance will win the poll and Mamata will become the chief minister," he said.
"Even in 2001, I had said Mamata is the future chief minister of the state and I am repeating it now. We will fight the assembly elections together and I do hope that we will get a majority and Mamata will take the responsibility of managing the affairs of the state," Mukherjee, the WBPPC chief said.
Elaborating on the alliance, Mukherjee said, "the people's wish and desire that non-left votes are not divided in Bengal brought us together."
Countering CPI(M)'s allegation, he said "This is not an unprincipled alliance. It has been formed on the basis of principles and to fulfill the spontaneous wish of the people, who are disenchanted with the 32 years of the Left Front rule. The way in which we are getting a response from the people is a reflection that it is a people's alliance".
Criticising the Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee government's acquisition of agricultural land for industry, which triggered the Nandigram and Singur controversies, Mukherjee said, "there is no justification for acquiring agriculture land for industry. "Whenever land has to be acquired for industry it has to be through consultation and negotiation with the people without whose consent nothing should be done."
Land could be acquired for public utilities invoking the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, he said, but not "with guns and killing people."
On deployment of security personnel for the elections, Mukherjee said that Centre has communicated to the Election Commission that though it was providing central forces for election duty, 'past experience shows that state governments do not deploy them properly'.
To a question, what the Trinamool Congress would do if Congress took CPI(M) support again to form the government after the elections, Mamata said "We don't think that Congress will form the government with CPI(M) after its bitter experience."
Mukherjee said the Left parties withdrew support over the civil nuclear agreement "though we sat with them nine times and tried to convince them."
