Kolkata, Dec 20 (IBNS): West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said the time was not ripe for declaring a prime ministerial candidate of the anti-BJP alliance.
Reacting to DMK chief M.K. Stalin's Sunday remark that Congress president Rahul Gandhi should be named the alliance's PM candidate, Mamata said: "I am not alone (in the proposed alliance). We are working together. So whatever all the political parties who have come together decide, we will accept that. Now is not the right time. Let us hope for the day when there will be a good change."
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has said Stalin's remark was his personal opinion and not the opinion of the alliance.
"Someone expressing his opinion does not mean it is the opinion of the alliance," he said.
DMK leader Stalin on Monday defended his proposal saying: "Projecting Rahul Gandhi for PM is the right thing to unite secular forces."
He said the credit for BJP's defeat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh went to the Congress president.
Stalin had first made the proposal on Sunday. Quoting him, Tamil Nadu Pradesh Mahila Congress tweeted: "I propose we'll install a new Prime Minister in Delhi. I propose the candidature of Rahul Gandhi from Tamil Nadu."
He also described the PM Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre as 'fascist'.
"He has got the ability to defeat the fascist Modi government," he said.
The suggestion has been rejected by other parties as well -- N. Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party, Farooq Abdullah's National Conference, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal and the CPM.
The Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held next year and the Congress is in the process of forming an alliance with regional parties to take on the BJP's might.
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