NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday addressed the long-standing question of who would be the prime ministerial candidate against PM Modi.
During a recent interaction with students at Georgetown University in the US, Rahul said that the decision would only be made after the INDIA bloc secures victory in the
Lok Sabha
elections.
“I mean our position in our alliance is that we are not going to answer that question until we win the elections.
There are multiple talented people in the INDIA bloc,” Rahul said.
Watch: Shri Rahul Gandhi interacts with the students at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.
“The moment we start that discussion, it opens the space for the press and the BJP to create issues. So our decision is that we are not going to raise that question; we are going to fight the elections and then, after the elections, decide,” he added.
During the interaction, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha referred to the Lok Sabha polls as “controlled elections” and suggested that in ‘fair elections,’ the Bharatiya Janata Party would not have even surpassed the 240-seat mark.
“I would sometimes sit there and say, this is quite amazing, right? There was like a wall that suddenly arrived and said, okay, we are not backing down now. And really, I don’t think the BJP, in a fair election, was anywhere near 240 seats, no way. I mean, I’d be surprised if they had a financial, you know, huge financial advantage. They had locked our bank accounts for one, but a huge war chest. The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. I mean, the entire campaign was structured so Mr. Modi could do his thing across the country. States where they were weak were designed differently than states where they were strong. So I don’t view it as a free election at all. I view it as a rather controlled election,” he said.
Rahul further elaborated on the challenges faced by the opposition, saying, “Multiple things came together. So, for example, prior to the election, we kept stressing the idea that the institutions had been captured. And whenever we’d go, the India alliance would go, we’d go, we stressed this idea that, look, the institutions are captured, and we don’t have a fair playing field. The education system is captured by the RSS, the media system is captured, the investigative agencies are captured. And we kept saying this and people were not quite getting it, and we would keep saying it again and again and again, and somehow they were just not getting it. And we couldn’t understand why because we were like, it’s obvious to us, it’s obvious to them, and something wasn’t working.”
Earlier, Rahul continued his criticism of the BJP, asserting that the “fear” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi among the people has dissipated following the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Gandhi arrived in Dallas, Texas, on Sunday for his three-day US visit, where he was welcomed at the airport by Sam Pitroda, Chairman of the
Indian Overseas Congress
, and members of the Indian diaspora.
