New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has asked India bloc partners to adopt a sustained “spirit of resistance” to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha on Friday shared his nine-minute speech to the India Caucus meeting in New Delhi on June 8, on social media.
“I am sorry to say that there is confusion in this group. The confusion is that you, the SP, the TMC and the RJD think that the political tools you have used so far will remain effective. These tools worked only when the Indian state provided a fair field for them to operate in. That field does not exist anymore,” he said, arguing that the opposition must move from standard electoral politics to an aggressive “resistance movement” and mass mobilization.
He also made the Congress an anchor for the bloc to present a united front against the BJP, saying his party was ready to “swallow all poison” and endure any humiliation to keep the opposition united.
He also repeated his claim that the Election Commission was acting in a partisan manner. He urged all partners to accept with “100%” certainty that the election was “stolen” and to stop treating it as a matter of doubt.
“I have many friends in the TMC. They were convinced that they were sweeping the elections in Bengal. I kept telling them, ‘You are in dreamland. I have seen what is happening. I have seen it in Gujarat. I have seen it in Madhya Pradesh… Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Maharashtra,'” he said.
He relied on the transformation of the Congress Party more than 100 years ago as a model for what the alliance should now become. He said that before 1927, Congress was merely a political organization.
“The day Gandhi said we wanted independence, we became a resistance movement,” he said, adding that if political parties were no longer able to function freely, resistance was the only tool that worked. “Resistance works. Wherever we resist, it succeeds. I have walked 4,000 kilometers across this country,” he said, referring to Bharat Guddu and Bharat Guddu Nyai Yatras.
The BJP responded to Gandhi, saying that he should first focus on uniting the Congress party. In a video statement, BJP spokesperson Shahzad Poonawalla said, “Rahul Gandhi told the INDI alliance that his job is to unite everyone. But first he must unite his party. He (Gandhi) says everyone should work together. However, he is the one who is betraying the allies.”
