Washington: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed students at Georgetown University in Washington, US, stating that the grand old party has dismantled the "idea of Modi" and emphasised that while he doesn't hate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he has a differing perspective from him.
"The politics in India has fundamentally changed. From our perspective, what we see is a clash of visions. We don't agree with Mr Modi's vision, and we fight it," Rahul Gandhi said during his interaction.
He described how Congress has a history of reinventing itself, citing examples from the 1970s when the party nationalised banks to the 1990s when it opened the economy with liberalisation. He attributed this adaptability to the foundation laid by Mahatma Gandhi.
Reflecting on the 2024 elections, Raebareli MP Rahul Gandhi revealed how the Congress faced challenges, including frozen bank accounts, yet managed to counter the Modi government.
"I was watching the elections, and there was a point when we sat down with the treasurer, who said, 'Look, your bank accounts are frozen. How are you supposed to fight an election if your accounts are frozen?' That was the reaction, and we didn't have an answer," he said.
"But then the Congress party fought the elections with our bank accounts frozen. And has basically destroyed the idea of Modi...And you can see it because when you see the Prime Minister now in the Parliament, and we come face to face, he is psychologically trapped, and he basically cannot understand how this has happened," the LoP added.
Emphasising that he holds no personal animosity toward the Prime Minister, he said, "I don't hate Mr. Modi. He has a point of view which I disagree with, but I don't see him as an enemy. I have empathy and compassion for him."
Highlighting the importance of the Indian Constitution, the Congress leader shared how the electorate recognised the fight to protect it during the elections.
"The poor, disenfranchised, and oppressed in India understood that if the Constitution goes, the whole game is lost."
He also underscored the growing significance of the caste census and how the power of India's states and marginalised groups began to coalesce, creating an unexpected resistance.
"I was blown away by the wisdom of India. It was like a wall that emerged, and I said, we are not backing down," Rahul Gandhi said.
Questioning the fairness of the recent elections, Gandhi stated, "I don't believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 240 seats. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a huge financial advantage and had locked our bank accounts. The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr Modi could carry out his agenda across the country. I don't view it as a free election at all but a heavily controlled one."
The Congress leader added that PM Modi's internal struggles became apparent during the election.
"My sense halfway through the elections was that Modi didn't think he was getting anywhere near 300-400 seats. And I think early on, he realised that this was going wrong. We were getting inputs from our regular sources that they were in trouble. There was this internal thing going on in the Prime Minister that I could see he thought, psychologically, that is how is this happening," Rahul Gandhi alleged.
"He was in Gujarat for many years, never faced any political adversity, and then became the Prime Minister of India, and suddenly this idea started to crack, and we knew when he said 'I speak directly to god,' then we knew that we had blown him apart," he added.
The Congress leader also predicted trouble for the BJP in upcoming Assembly elections, claiming the coalition that brought PM Modi to power had collapsed.
"They'll struggle because the idea of Modi running a government for the people has been replaced by a nexus with big businesses, while the lower castes, OBCs, and Dalits have been left behind," he said.
IANS