NEW DELHI: For the past few days,
Rahul Gandhi
would consistently claim that PM Narendra Modi was running scared and was on the verge of breaking down. On Friday, it was the PM’s turn to tell the Congress leader that the taunt was on him. With Rahul choosing to vacate
Amethi
for the “safer Rai Bareli”, Modi led BJP leaders in mocking him, spraying him with “daro mat (don’t be afraid), bhaago mat (don’t run away) barbs that Rahul had hurled against him.
“Today, I want to tell him (Rahul), daro mat, bhaago mat,” Modi said at a rally in Bardhaman in Bengal soon after Rahul gave in to relentless persuasion from his colleagues to contest from Rai Bareli.
Modi quickly projected Rahul’s decision to vacate Amethi, which he had lost to Smriti Irani in 2019, as a pointer to BJP’s third consecutive landslide, while also saying that the decision to contest from Rai Bareli showed the Congress leader’s jitters about his prospects in Wayanad in Kerala. “Many media personalities and experts continue to speculate about the election outcome. There is no longer any need for opinion polls or exit polls, the country’s voice is clear. The only question that still remains unsettled is whether we are going to cross the 400 mark,” he added.
Modi asserted that Congress’s tally in the Lok Sabha polls would be an “all-time low”, and the party would struggle to cross even the “half century” mark. Congress’s lowest tally was in 2014 when it bagged 44 seats. In 2019, it managed 52.
Taking a swipe at Sonia Gandhi for moving to the Rajya Sabha, the PM said he had mentioned earlier that the most prominent opposition leader would be too afraid to contest and she fled in fear. “She ran off to Rajasthan and entered Rajya Sabha from there,” he said. “I had already predicted that Congress’s ‘shehzada’ would lose in Wayanad and, fearing defeat, he would immediately start looking for another seat once voting in Wayanad concluded,” he added.
Continuing BJP’s onslaught, home minister Amit Shah said at a rally in Chikkodi in Karnataka that Sonia’s bids to “launch” Rahul had failed in the past and would happen again. “Sonia Gandhi tried to launch Rahul 20 times but failed every time. This time around, he is going to be launched for the 21st time. He is contesting from
Rae Bareli
instead of Amethi out of fear of loss. I am going to predict the mandate here. Rahul Gandhi is going to face a crushing defeat in Rae Bareli,” he said.
BJP also took a dig at Congress for not fielding Priyanka Gandhi from Amethi. “It is clear as daylight that Rahul Gandhi’s camp doesn’t want his sister to rise, lest she outshine him. How this sibling struggle for power within Congress plays out remains to be seen. But for now, Priyanka has lost out again,” BJP IT department chief Amit Malviya said.
