by Rahul was addressing a rally in Amethi, his former constituency, after participating in “BJP Bhagao, Mehangai Hatao” ‘padyatra’ as a part of the Congress party’s ongoing nationwide campaign ‘Jan Jagran Abhiyan’.
The Congress leader focused his attack on Prime Minister’s recent visit to Varanasi during which he took a holy dip in Ganga, saying that while “a Hindutvavadi bathes alone, a Hindu bathes with crores of people.”
“A ‘Hindutvavadi’ bathes alone in Ganga, while a Hindu bathes with crores of people … Narendra Modi says he is a Hindu, but when did he protect truth? He asked people to bang thalis to get rid of Covid …” Rahul said.
He said that it was the first time that he saw a person taking a dip in the Ganga alone.
“For the first time I saw just one person taking bath in Ganga, Yogi Ji was removed, Rajnath Singh sidelined …,” the Congress MP from Wayanad said.
Rahul called Mahatama Gandhi the best example of “a Hindu” and said that a Hindu is someone who follows the path of truth and never gives up to fear or turn it into violence or anger.
“Mahatma Gandhi spent all his life understanding truth and then there is [Nathuram] Godse – ‘Hindutvavadi’. Nobody calls him [Godse] a Mahatma because he killed a Hindu who always spoke the truth … Godse was a coward, a weak man… he could not face his fears,” he added.
The former Congress president also tore into the BJP goverment in the state and the Centre over developmental issues, saying that unemployment and inflation are the two big questions that both PM Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath are unwilling to address.
“Middle-class people and the poor were badly affected by some of the decisions taken by the PM, which also resulted in large scale unemployment. Demonetisation, wrongly implicated GST, no help during the Covid crisis are the major reasons for unemployment in India,” he said.
The Congress had launched the “Jan Jagran Abhiyan” on November 14 to “expose” the mismanagement of the economy by the Centre.
Notably, Gandhi visited Amethi after almost two and a half years.
Rahul had represented Amethi, a bastion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, for 15 years in Lok Sabha. He fought from two constituencies in 2019 and was defeated in Amethi but won from Wayanad in Kerala.
Rahul was also accompanied by his sister and Congress’s national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The visit of the Congress leaders comes ahead of the assembly polls slated to be held early next year.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats. The party secured a 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member assembly. Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, BSP won 19 while Congress could manage to win only seven seats.
(With inputs from agencies)
