NEW DELHI, India, July 23 (NNN-PTI) - India's main opposition Congress party, on Sunday, named its chief, Rahul Gandhi, as the grand old outfit's prime ministerial candidate, for next year's general elections.
"Naturally, the Congress president would be the only face to be projected. The Congress would fight this election by putting forward our leader," party spokesman, R.S. Surjewala, told the media in Delhi.
The party's announcement came, hours after Gandhi and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, convened the meeting of the Congress Working Committee, its highest decision-making body.
At the meeting, the Congress also authorised Rahul Gandhi, to take a call on all pre-poll alliances, with other opposition parties, to contest the 2019 general elections.
On his part, the Congress chief said, "We are setting up a group that is going to do that (pre-poll alliance)."
"The biggest challenge before the party is to expand the vote base, and stressed the need for a strategy to reach out to people, to win back their trust," Gandhi said.
The Congress lost the 2014 general elections, to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, after being plagued by allegations of corruption, and its inability to rein in inflation.-- NNN-PTI
