Saharanpur/Ghaziabad: Sharing the dais with arrested Congress candidate Imran Masood’s wife, Rahul Gandhi on Saturday disapproved of his controversial comments threatening to chop BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Modi “into pieces” saying they militated against the party’s ideology.
Addressing a rally in Saharanpur, Gandhi said Masood should not have used those strong words (kathor shabd) as Congress does not have to do the politics of anger like the opposition.
Soon after Masood’s arrest, it was said by party leaders that Gandhi will not be addressing the scheduled rally at Saharanpur. However, after his Ghaziabad public meeting, Gandhi went ahead with his rally in Saharanpur where he met Masood’s wife Shaima.
Addressing the meeting, Shaima said her husband is being “trapped” on the basis of “false allegations”. Describing herself as their duaghter and daughter in-law, Shaima said she came there with her children to seek their “blessings”.
Her sharing the dais with Gandhi is significant as Congress may have to change its candidate from the seat in wake of the police case against Masood.
Earlier speaking in Ghaziabad, Gandhi said Imran’s remarks were against the party’s ideology.
“He should not have used such words against the opposition leader. I want to tell the whole country that words he used against one of opposition leaders is not our ideology,” Rahul said.
“Congress Party is of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. We do not get angry, we do our work peacefully and with love,” Rahul said.
At Saharanpur, the Congress Vice President said the politics of Congress is of taking everybody along as the nation can be built only then.
“You need to understand the people in opposition. They do the politics of anger. We do not have to do the politics of anger but of love and respect. We have to fight and defeat the politics of anger. You will see that we are going to defeat the politics of anger with love.”
Mr Gandhi chose graft, BJP’s main plank in the Lok Sabha polls, to attack the saffron party, saying “are they blind” to people like B S Yeddyurappa in Karnataka and mining mafia of Chhattisgarh.
“Are they blind when they stand by people like B S Yeddyurappa in Karnataka. They go to Chhattisgarh and don’t see mining mafia, sand mafia in the state and stand beside its chief minister,” Gandhi said, while addressing a rally here as party candidate Raj Babbar stood beside him.
“They don’t see Yeddyurappa, who has several corruption charges against him and even has gone to the jail, and share
dais with him,” Gandhi said.
He also hit out at BJP leader Narendra Modi indirectly, saying, “When they also go to Gujarat, they don’t get to see corrupt ministers in their (Modi) Cabinet. In his Cabinet, there are several ministers, who have served jail. But, they don’t get to see corruption there, so why they talk about corruption.”
In Gujarat, one would not find “an RTI commissioner or a Lokayukta”, he claimed. “If they are very serious about corruption, so why do
they allow corrupt to stand beside them,” he said, adding that before pointing fingers at Congress over corruption, they (BJP) should look at themselves.
“Today, anybody can ask question from Prime Minister, ministers and bureaucrats using RTI. Few days back, I wrote a letter to PM, later the letter was published in an English daily. We gave rights to common man through RTI. It was not BJP which brought RTI law, instead it was Congress,” Gandhi said.
He said that Congress brought the Lokpal bill and also six anti-graft bills in Parliament, but the opposition has stalled it.
“From Delhi to Mumbai to Chennai to Kolkata, we have created business corridors and built roads, dedicated railways lines. Here lakhs of industries will come up and we are trying to make a manufacturing backbone,” he said.
