Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for carrying out a “systemic attack” on the country’s institutions, prompting a sharp retort from the BJP, which called him an “unsuccessful leader” who betrayed the country on foreign soil.
Addressing the Ideas for India conference in London on Friday, Gandhi said India’s voice has been crushed by the institutional framework of the country itself, which is becoming parasitical.
“What is happening today is that there is a systematic attack on the institutions that allow conversations to take place. There is an attack on the Constitution of India. The result of this attack is that the states of India are no longer able to negotiate with the government,” the former Congress president said.
“So, the deep state, the CBI, the ED, is now chewing the Indian state and eating it, much like in Pakistan,” he said, accusing the BJP of exercising “100 per cent control” over media, and broad control over the institutional framework.
On Saturday, the BJP hit back, accusing Gandhi of harming India in his “hate” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and alleged that his frequent critical remarks about the country from foreign soil amounted to “betrayal”.
{{/usCountry}}On Saturday, the BJP hit back, accusing Gandhi of harming India in his “hate” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and alleged that his frequent critical remarks about the country from foreign soil amounted to “betrayal”.
{{/usCountry}}Taking exception to Gandhi’s remark that the ruling party has spread “kerosene all over the country, you need one spark and we will be in big trouble”, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said that it is the Congress which has been carrying kerosene to incite riots since the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. Bhatia dubbed Gandhi a “part-time, immature, unsuccessful leader of a hopeless Congress” who has often spoken negatively about the country in foreign places like the US, the UK and Singapore.
“He keeps making such comments frequently and it will not be wrong to say that this amounts to betraying the country,” Bhatia said.
The conference, organised by a think tank, Bridge India, also saw Gandhi toning down his rhetoric against regional parties, saying that the Congress will coordinate with state satraps for a pan-Indian agitation to oust the BJP-led NDA government.
“We have to coordinate with our friends in the Opposition. I don’t view the Congress as the ‘Big Daddy’. It is a group effort with the Opposition. But it is a fight to regain India,” he said.
Gandhi’s comments came days after his remarks that regional parties were not capable of taking on the BJP for lack of ideological clarity at the Congress Chintan Shivir in Udaipur sparked a controversy.
“The point I made in Udaipur, which was misconstrued, is that this is an ideological battle now. It is a national ideological battle, which means that of course we respect the DMK as a Tamil political organisation, but the Congress is the party that has the ideology at the national level.”
“In no way is the Congress superior to the other opposition parties, we are all fighting the same battle. They have their space, we have ours, but an ideological battle is taking place between the national vision of the RSS and that of the Congress,” Gandhi said.
Opposition leaders including the CPI’s Sitaram Yechury and the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav were also present at the event in London.
Gandhi, who is under pressure to return to the party’s top post, said, “We will not be able to match the funds they [BJP] have, we will have to think of communication and funding in a completely new way. We have to think about an organisational structure that is much closer to the masses. We will have to think of a large-scale mass movement on issues like unemployment, prices and on regional matters.”
During the interactive session, Gandhi also drew parallels between the Russia-Ukraine conflict and China’s actions in Ladakh.
Bhatia hit out at Gandhi for comparing the situation in Ladakh to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, alleging the Congress leader insulted the sacrifices of Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley.
During the event, Gandhi alleged that there was “no conversation” between the government and bureaucrats. “I was talking to some bureaucrats from Europe and they were saying that the Indian Foreign Service has completely changed and they don’t listen to anything -- they are arrogant. Now they just keep telling us what orders they are getting, there is no conversation; you can’t do that,” Gandhi said.
Reacting to his comments, external affairs minster S Jaishankar said that the change is not called “arrogance” but “confidence and defending national interest”.
Jaishankar tweeted, “Yes, the Indian Foreign Service has changed. Yes, they follow the orders of the Government. Yes, they counter the arguments of others. No, it’s not called Arrogance. It is called Confidence. And it is called defending National Interest.”
(With agency inputs)