BJP, Modi on their last leg: Rahul Gandhi

The five state elections will tell the country what people think of BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday. Exuding confidence that BJP would be losing the elections, he declared that the results would be a message to the BJP, RSS and the Prime Minister.

While newspapers and the media, which were once hailed as tigers, have been reduced to paper tigers and report on weddings, cricket, sports and Bollywood on their front pages, Mr Gandhi asserted, they would not influence the elections. But the failure of the Modi Government to address the farm crisis and growing unemployment would. “ You do not find on the front pages reports on farm distress, unemployment and that is because ownership of the media has passed into the hands of crony capitalists who are beholden to the Government.”

In every state the media had been ‘captured’ by powerful people and that is why the media reported only what powerful people wanted to read and listen, he quipped. Media and newspapers have ceased to give voice to the people, he said while adding that Navjivan, a sister publication and portal of the National Herald, would strive to be the voice of the people.

“Criticise the Congress if we make mistakes; and we do commit mistakes. We will not take umbrage because we are different from the BJP and the RSS. We will make course corrections,” said the Congress President, who called upon the media to protect institutions which are under attack.

There is growing frustration and anger among the people, especially among farmers and the youth, he conceded and said that the RSS and BJP had tried to channelise the anger against political rivals. But the RSS and the BJP had failed to address the root cause of the anger, which is unemployment and unremunerative farm prices, he pointed out.

The Congress President was addressing a function at Mohali to release a commemorative volume on Mahatma Gandhi, who had first launched Navjivan as a Gujarati newspaper. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Group Editorial Advisor Smt Mrinal Pande, Chairman of Associated Journals Ltd. Motilal Vora and Editor-in-Chief Zafar Agha were present on the occasion.

Accusing the Modi Government of treating farmers as a liability, he said that farmers will be the key for food security in both the 21st century as well as the 22nd century. They would remain the pivot of the economy. Regarding unemployment the Congress President declared that he had been talking in his speeches how China was creating 50,000 jobs every 24 hours, India is able to create just 450 jobs a day. This, he said, has to change.

People would give a befitting reply to the BJP in the elections, he declared and said that the Modi Government was on its last leg and there is little doubt in his mind that both BJP and Modi are on their way out.

But the Congress, he added, would have to look beyond elections and work out new strategies, implement new ideas and plans to find a solution to unemployment and unremunerative farm prices.

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Modi, Rahul Gandhi reminded the audience of the PM’s penchant to claim that before he became the Prime Minister, the Indian elephant was asleep, that nothing happened in India before 2014 etc. and said that he wished the PM had listened more to the people.

‘Rest assured, BJP and Mr Modi are on their way out. They are not returning to power in 2019,” he asserted.

You can watch the full programme here: