INDIA Bloc Will Defeat BJP in LS Polls, ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ Not Possible, Says Rahul Gandhi – News18

Asserting that the INDIA alliance will defeat the BJP in national elections, Rahul Gandhi on Friday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ will never materialise as even the mighty Britishers had failed to finish off the party during their heydays.

Congress MP Gandhi said his party will replicate its win in Karnataka notched up a few months ago in poll-bound Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.

Addressing party workers at the Maharashtra Congress office at Tilak Bhavan in Mumbai, he claimed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Prime Minister Modi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are “scared” of the country’s oldest political outfit.

“People in the media said the Congress party does not have strength, but who defeated the BJP in Karnataka?” Gandhi said, referring to his party’s resounding victory in the assembly polls in the southern state held in May this year.

“Whatever happened in Karnataka will happen in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh (where assembly polls are due in the next few months). The INDIA alliance is going to defeat the BJP in national elections and the Congress party will win the polls,” he said.

The Congress MP said his party did not split in Maharashtra because it is based on ideology.

The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), both allies of the Congress, saw splits in their ranks in the state in the last one year with sections of their MLAs joining hands with the BJP.

The former Congress president asserted the BJP will be wiped out in Maharashtra, which at 48, sends the second largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha.

The Lok Sabha member from Wayanad in Kerala termed Maharashtra as the “nucleus” of the Congress party as it was born in Mumbai in 1885.

Gandhi was in Mumbai to take part in the two-day conclave of the opposition bloc Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

The Wayanad MP said Modi had given a call of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, but even the then “superpower England” could not wipe out the party from the country.

Instead, the Congress, which spearheaded the freedom struggle, drove them away from the country, he said.

Referring to the fresh allegations against the Adani group, Gandhi said, “Modi ji thinks his relation with Adani ji will finish off the Congress. He thinks Adani ji’s money will finish off the Congress party.” The Congress leader hit out at the Adani group over the redevelopment of Dharavi, a sprawling slum colony in Mumbai, for which the conglomerate has won a bid.

“These people have not realised what Dharavi is and its people. The Congress party will explain to them what Dharavi is. They think the real India, the India of the poor can be wiped out. But it cannot be wiped out,” Gandhi said.

Last year, the Adani group emerged as the highest bidder to redevelop Dharavi, which is spread across 259 hectares. The ports-to-power conglomerate quoted Rs 5,069 crore bid for the redevelopment of one of the largest slum sprawls in the world, outbidding realty major DLF, which had quoted Rs 2,025 crore.

The Congress has opposed the Adani group redeveloping Dharavi.

Gandhi said the Congress has to open “mohabbat ki dukaan” (shops of love) in the enemy’s “nafrat ka bazaar” (market of hate).

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)