New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that his “arrogance was burning India like Ravana’s arrogance got Lanka burned”.
Gandhi made the remarks while speaking in the Lok Sabha in support of the no-confidence motion.
“Lanka was not burned by Lord Hanuman but it was burned by the arrogance of Ravana. Ram did not kill Ravana but the arrogance of Ravana killed him and in the same manner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrogance is burning the whole country.”
“You are throwing kerosene in entire India. You threw kerosene in Manipur and then you ignited it. Now you are doing that in Haryana. You are trying to burn entire India and you are trying to kill India,” Rahul Gandhi said.
He questioned why Modi has not visited the violence-torn state yet.
“Is Manipur not a part of India,” he asked.
Rahul Gandhi also thanked Speaker Om Birla for re-instating him as the MP.
He then shared his Bharat Jodo Yatra experience. “Initially, when I started the Yatra, I had in my mind that walking 25 km is no big deal if I can run 8 to 10 km every day. Today, when I look at that, it was arrogance. I had arrogance in my heart at that time. But India erases arrogance, erases it in a second. So, within 2-3 days, my knees started hurting, it was an old injury. In the first few days, the wolf became an ant. The arrogance with which I had come to see India, that arrogance was wiped out,” he said.
He then said, “After some time I started realising that the thing which I loved, the thing for which I am ready to die, the thing I am ready to go to prison of Modiji and for the thing for which I was abused for 10 years, I wanted to understand that. What is this, which has captured my heart, I wanted to understand that.”
Sharing his experience of the Yatra from Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari to Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar, the Congress MP said, “Every day I walked with fear and whenever this fear grew some power helped me. One day, I was unable to bear the pain and a young girl gave me a letter that read, don’t worry I am walking with you. She saw my injury and she gave her power. And lakhs of people gave me the power.”
He then said that In the first few days, he spoke his mind to the people but after some time he started listening to them and then he shared their pain.
He further said that people say that this is a country while some say there are different languages and different religions.
“This country is a voice and it is the truth. This country is the voice of people, their pain, and their hardships. And if we have to listen to the voice then we have to wipe the arrogance, desires, and dreams. When we remove our dream then only we can listen to the voice of India,” he said.
“Now you will ask why you kept this in no-confidence motion. Because if we have to listen to the voice of India then we have to remove the hatred,” Rahul Gandhi explained.
Targeting the Prime Minister, Rahul Gandhi said, “When I said that India is a voice of people, the heart, that voice has been murdered in India. It means Bharat Mata has been killed in Manipur. By killing the people of Manipur you have murdered Manipur. You are anti-national as you have killed Bharat Mata (mother India).”
“And it is the reason why your Prime Minister cannot go to Manipur as he has killed India in Manipur and in the hearts of the people of Manipur,” he said.
He also said that BJP has killed Bharat Mata in Manipur and till the time you don’t stop violence you are murdering India.
“The armed forces can bring normalcy in one day but you are not using it as you want to kill India in Manipur. If Modi cannot listen to the hearts of people of India…,” he added.
With inputs from IANS