New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said Wednesday that the party was not just battling the BJP and the RSS–who have “captured every single institution of our country”–but also the “Indian state itself” in what he termed was a “civilisational war”.
The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha sharpened his pitch on why the Congress was waging an ideological battle, at the inauguration of the Congress’s new party headquarters “Indira Bhavan” in New Delhi.
Rahul castigated the ruling party and its parent organisation RSS over sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks Tuesday that India achieved “true Independence” on the day Ram Temple was consecrated (22 January, 2024). Bhagwat’s remarks were akin to treason for which he ought to have been arrested and put on trial, Rahul said, asserting it was time “we stop listening to this nonsense these people think they can just keep parroting out and shouting and screaming”. Bhagwat had made the comments at an event in Indore.
Rahul added: “Mohan Bhagwat has the audacity to inform the nation every two or three days… what he thinks about the Independence movement, what he thinks about the Constitution. In fact, what he has said yesterday is treason, because it is stating that the Constitution is invalid. It is stating that everything the fight against the British was invalid, and he has the audacity to say this publicly. In any other country he would be arrested and tried. That is the fact. To say that India did not get Independence in 1947 is an insult to every single Indian.”
This article is NOT paywalled
But your support enables us to deliver impactful stories, credible interviews, insightful opinions and on-ground reportage.
Rahul emphasised Congress leaders and workers should not be under the impression that the party was merely fighting a political organisation like the BJP or the RSS. Those who hold such a view, he said, have failed to grasp the true nature of the situation in the country.
“Do not think we are fighting a fair fight. There is no fairness in this… the BJP and the RSS have captured every single institution of our country. We are now fighting the BJP, the RSS, and the Indian state itself,” said the Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition.
‘Not happy with Election Commission’
To buttress his point, Rahul underlined “there is a serious problem with our election system and we are not comfortable with the way the Election Commission is holding polls”.
He alleged “something wrong” happened in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, in which the BJP-led Mahayuti coalition scored a major victory, handing a drubbing to the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of the Opposition, of which the Congress is a part.
Claiming over one crore voters were added in Maharashtra between the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2024 Assembly polls, Rahul alleged the poll body refused to share with them names and addresses of those who voted in the Maharashtra election.
“Why will it damage the election commission to give us this list, and why are they not giving us this list? It is the duty of the Election Commission to provide transparency in elections. If there is a one-crore increase in voters in Maharashtra–between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha–it is the duty and the sacred responsibility of the Election Commission to show us exactly why that has happened, and they are refusing to do it,” Rahul said, speaking at the auditorium of the newly-inaugurated building on Kotla Marg in Delhi.
‘Blood and sweat behind Indira Bhavan’
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the building in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and the entire top leadership from across states. It was a moment in history for the Congress, the country’s oldest political party, which operated out of an office at 24, Akbar Road in the Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone since 1978.
The new headquarters will also document the Congress’s journey, beginning with the tenure of Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee as its first president in 1885 to the incumbent president Kharge. Four floors of the building have been designed to offer visitors a walk through experiences of its past and present. It also has a library, named after the late Manmohan Singh.
Rahul said the new building, construction of which began in 2016, has emerged out of the blood and sweat of millions of Congress workers, in the years that preceded the country’s Independence, and the decades that followed it. The foundation stone was laid in 2009 when the Congress-led UPA government was in power at the Centre.
“But it is important that now we take the ideas from this building, and like leaders of the Congress have done, we spread the ideas to the soil of this country because we are fighting a civilisational war with these people. They are, every day, attacking the ideas that we believe in. And only this organisation, only the people in this room and the millions of workers of this organisation have the courage and the capability to stop (them)… We are an ideological party and our ideology did not emerge yesterday,” Rahul said.
He said the RSS and the BJP outlined a dark vision of India that does not sit well with the country’s civilisational ethos.
“Do not forget that the people who are in power today do not salute the Tricolour, do not believe in the national flag, do not believe in the Constitution… They want India to be run by a shady, hidden, secret society. They want India to be run by one man, and they want to crush the voice of this country. They want to crush the voice of Dalits. They want to crush the voice of minorities. They want to crush the voice of backward castes. This is their agenda,” he said.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: In 1st rally in poll-bound Delhi, Rahul takes on Kejriwal, equates his playbook with Modi’s
