UP elections: Beni Prasad Verma snipes at 'old' Manmohan Singh

LUCKNOW: Steel minister Beni Prasad Verma feels PM Manmohan Singh will be too old to handle his job in 2014 and should make way for Rahul Gandhi. He becomes the second Congressman to embarrass his party after Salman Khurshid.

The party is still grappling with the fallout of Khurshid’s claim that Batla House encounter photographs had left party chief Sonia Gandhi in tears.

This, in fact, is the second Verma bungle. Last week, he had called party colleague P L Punia – credited with bringing the Congress close to the backwards in 2009– an outsider. Punia is MP from Barabanki. Verma made his statement on the PM while talking to reporters in Jaunpur while campaigning .

Asked about Rahul Gandhi’s prospects, he said: “Manmohan Singh is already 80. By 2014 (next LS election) he will be 82. There is a limit to which anyone can handle pressures of being a PM, so Rahul Gandhi will automatically become PM.”

Congress leaders refused to comment. But the opposition reacted. “This shows what Verma feels for party veterans. He’s showing the door to the person who got him in his cabinet,” said SP leader Azam Khan.