Union Minister Athawale said – Kamala Harris is the Vice President of America, so why could Sonia Gandhi not become the Prime Minister of India?

Union Minister Ramdas Athawale on Saturday said that if Kamala Harris can become the Vice President of America, then why could not Sonia Gandhi, a citizen of India, wife of Rajiv Gandhi and elected to the Lok Sabha, become the Prime Minister of this country? Further answering this, he said that Indian-born Kamala Harris could become the Vice President of America, while Sonia Gandhi, born in Italy, could also become the Prime Minister of India after the victory of the Congress joint relevant coalition in the general elections 17 years ago. The Union Minister has said this at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a visit to America and he has also held a meeting with Kamala Harris there.

Terming Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s issue of foreign origin as redundant in the context of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he said Gandhi should have become the Prime Minister in 2004 and if he did not have to accept the post, then to strengthen the Congress. The then senior party leader Sharad Pawar should have been made the Prime Minister. “Pawar deserved the prime minister’s post being a mass leader and Congress should have made him the prime minister in place of Manmohan Singh, but Sonia Gandhi didn’t,” he said. Athawale also said that if Pawar had become the Prime Minister of the country in 2004, the alleged mishap for the Congress would not have happened like it is happening today.

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Significantly, Pawar is currently the head of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The NCP was formed on May 25, 1999 by Pawar, along with PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar, after Italy-born Sonia Gandhi was expelled from the Congress over a dispute over her right to lead the Congress.

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The Union minister called upon senior leader Amarinder Singh, who was forced to step down as Punjab chief minister in recent political developments, to join the BJP or the National Democratic Alliance led by him in the wake of his “huge humiliation” by the Congress. Athawale said, “If Singh joins the BJP, the BJP’s position will be strengthened in the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab.”