Mamata Banerjee has all the qualities to become the PM: Yashwant Sinha

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will play a major role in achieving the objective of unseating the government in Delhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, said Yashwant Sinha, former union Finance minister, in Kolkata on Sunday.

Talking to newsmen on the sidelines, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed to lead the country and will lose the 2019 election. "Mamata Banerjee has all the qualities to become the PM," he said.

Sinha took part in a programme titled Idea of Bengal, organised by the Social Media Cell of Trinamool Congress at an auditorium in South Kolkata on Sunday afternoon. Sinha was talking to Trinamool Congress MP Derek O' Brien, who was the moderator.

"Mamata Banerjee is a courageous lady and I think she will play a major role in unseating the government at the Centre in 2019 Lok Sabha polls," Sinha said.

Referring to an incident in 1999 which showed the great courage of Banerjee, he said after an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu was hijacked and taken to Kandahar, the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had called a cabinet meeting.

Sinha and Banerjee were both cabinet ministers back then. In the cabinet meeting, Banerjee stood up and said she and Sinha were ready to go to Kandahar and offer themselves as hostages. Getting two ministers as hostages, the Talibans might release the hostages, she had told the cabinet members. "Her proposal was turned down but this showed her great courage," Sinha maintained.

Asked to comment on the results of five states where Assembly polls had been held and whose results will be out on December 11, he said: "In the Hindi belt, that is Rajasthan Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Congress is likely to win while KCR will retain Telangana and Mizo National Front is likely to come in Mizoram," he maintained.

Sinha said in order to run a coalition government the Prime Minister should have personal charisma, know about the functioning of the government and respect the cabinet colleagues.

"After Independence, Vajpayeeji could run the coalition government and complete its tenure of five years because of his leadership and the respect he showed to his cabinet colleagues," he said, adding: "But the present Prime Minister is reluctant to listen to his cabinet colleagues. His cabinet colleagues did not know about note ban or the Rafale deal."

Sinha said the Centre has "devalued the institutions" like Supreme Court, CBI and RBI and forced media owners to compromise.

"The owners or media houses and senior editors were forced to surrender. After a Press conference in Delhi which I addressed, a journalist came up to me and said he was not going to write what I had said because if he did he would lose his job."