The exit poll results declared on May 19 have almost unanimously predicted a return of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. During a debate on the news channel India Today on why the BJP’s main political rival, the Congress party, has been unable to keep up, Swaraj India President Yogendra Yadav made a strong statement, saying, “Congress should die.”

“I say this in all seriousness, without exaggeration, without anger, (and) without any emotion – Congress should die,” Yadav said. According to him, Congress today is the “single biggest obstacle in the path of creating an alternative to divisive politics which the country desperately needs”.

The exit poll results have predicted that Congress’s performance, although better than in 2014, will not be impressive. “If this party called Congress, which says it stands for constitutional values and a secular India, cannot put up a resistance, it has no reason to exist,” Yadav added.

This is not an entirely new statement, though. Yadav had said much the same thing in 2018. (Watch from 15.20 onwards for the statement.)

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