Rahul-led Cong no challenge to Modi: Raman Singh

The Congress led by Rahul Gandhi poses no challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will find it difficult to win even 40 or 50 seats in the 2019 Parliamentary polls, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh has said.

Modi has his "magic" and the people of the country stand by him, Singh said, stressing that the BJP would do even better in the next general elections than it did in 2014 because of the NDA government's policies.

There are no challenges in front of the prime minister," he told PTI in an interview when asked about the challenges Modi faced ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress is no challenge, he stressed.

The party occupies the fourth position in Uttar Pradesh, is behind three or four parties in Bihar and is not a frontrunner in West Bengal, Singh said.

"It will hardly hardly manage to get 40-50 MPs in the Lok Sabha polls," he said.

He took a jibe at the number of opposition leaders seeking to oust the BJP and said from SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati to TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and Congress president Gandhi, everybody wanted to be the prime minister.

"Delhi cannot be run like this," he said.

For the NDA, Modi was the clear leader, he added.

"Narendra Modi is one prime minister from the BJP while there are six PMs from there (the opposition)," he said.

Asked to comment on the BJP's defeat in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur by-elections last month, Singh said immediate reactions often had an impact on by-polls and they might go against a ruling dispensation.

But civic and Assembly polls were fought on different issues and could not be compared with general elections, he said.

On Chhattisgarh's Assembly elections, slated to be held later this year, the chief minister said the BJP's direct competition was with the Congress.

Referring to Ajit Jogi's Chhattisgarh Janata Congress, Singh said whether the former chief minister fought from the Congress or separately, the BJP would benefit.

Jogi will exist (in state politics) but whether the former chief minister and his party separately fight the election or with the Congress, the BJP will benefit," he said.