"Rahul Gandhi should start a gym, Tharoor an English institute": Rajeev Chandrasekhar trains guns at Congress

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], June 3 : Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday sharply reacted to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's remark on the exit polls, saying Shashi Tharoor should start an English training institute and Rahul Gandhi should start a career in a gym.
Speaking to ANI, Chandrasekhar said, "Rahul Gandhi should start a gym. Shashi Tharoor should start an English training institute. The Congress party has many people who are very good with language and speak very eloquently and I think these elections will point them towards a new occupation."
"The people of India want their political leaders who serve them and who can improve their lives, and certainly, this group of people, whether that is Rahul Gandhi or anybody else in the Congress party, certainly does not fit the bill," Chandrasekhar further said.
BJP leader Chandrasekhar is the NDA candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency and faces a stiff challenge from the former diplomat and senior Congress leader Tharoor, who is seeking a third term in this Lok Sabha seat.
While the BJP has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, the party registered a victory in the Thiruvananthapuram district just once, with O Rajagopal winning the Nemom assembly seat in 2016.
Meanwhile, commenting on exit poll results that predicted a third straight win for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, the Union Minister said, "The people of India are very happy that the exit polls are showing a stronger mandate for our Prime Minister for his third term. It is historic in many ways that he is getting a third term and more importantly, it is the third term where each successive mandate has improved and shows how people are responding to his governance, his development, and how he is taking India forward."
"I am looking forward to what the people of Thiruvananthapuram have decided and I look forward to the result tomorrow. I have been saying that at the end of the 2024 polls, you will find that the BJP is the largest national party in the South, especially when the INDIA alliance and the Congress partners kept trying to pretend that somehow Southern India is a region where voters do not want the BJP," he added.
Earlier in the day, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that the exit polls are laughable, asserting that the INDIA bloc will get 295 seats.
"We are seeing it with scepticism and disbelief because we have also been campaigning throughout the country. We also have a sense of what the pulse of the people is and we don't believe it is reflected accurately in these polls. Our Congress president, after meeting all the INDIA bloc members, has said that he is convinced that we are getting about 295 for the alliance. I stick to that number," Tharoor told reporters on Monday.
"If any exit poll can say that the BJP will win up to 7 seats in Kerala - either they are suffering from heatstroke or they don't understand Kerala. Some of these exit polls are also laughable for other reasons. I don't think we should take them seriously," he added.
He further exuded confidence that the numbers the people have seen in the exit Polls will be proved wrong tomorrow.
"Not just Thiruvananthapuram, I am also 100 per cent confident that the numbers you have all seen in the exit polls for the nationwide picture will also be belied tomorrow," he said.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is poised for a hat-trick win in Lok Sabha polls with a massive majority, exit polls predicted on Saturday and indicated that the ruling party at the Centre would improve its performance in several states ruled by other parties.
A few exit polls predicted that the BJP-led NDA could reach the goal of "400 paar" stated by BJP leaders in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
The exit polls predicted that the ruling BJP-led NDA is poised to improve its performance over its 2019 record when it won 352 seats. Two polls predicted the BJP would also improve its numbers from the 303 seats it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The exit poll predicted a marked rise in the NDA's vote share in Tamil Nadu, which is expected to go to 22 per cent.
According to the Axis My India exit poll, the BJP-led NDA is expected to win 2-4 seats in Tamil Nadu. The INDIA bloc, which has both DMK and Congress in it, is set to win 33-37 seats out of 39 Lok Sabha seats.
The Narendra Modi-led BJP is seeking a third term in power, while the opposition INDIA bloc is aiming to wrest power by stopping the juggernaut.