Rahul Gandhi flays Amit Shah over animal analogy

KGF: A day after BJP president Amit Shah compared “desperate” opposition to cats, dogs and snakes, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi hit back at the saffron party’s leadership saying the statement only mirrored its disrespect to others.

“There are only two non-animals in the country: One is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the other is BJP president Amit Shah,” Rahul said here on Saturday. Shah called the entire opposition animals and the vision of the BJP and the RSS is to disrespect others, the Gandhi scion said.

The BJP’s top two leaders treat their own party veterans like L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and even Union Minister Nitin Gadkari with scant regard, but they have “no guts to stand up to Modi and Shah and express their dissent”, he said.

Shah had said in Mumbai on Friday that opposition parties, which are “scared of the Modi wave” are desperately trying to join hands despite their contradictions and compared their increasingly closer association to “dogs, cats, snakes and mongooses” coming together. Shah’s observation had come months after senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s statement that “not even a dog from the BJP had taken part in India’s Freedom Movement”.

Rahul called Modi a “corrupt man” who remained mum despite being “aware” of the banking fraud by businessmen Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. “Though several agencies alerted him, the Prime Minister preferred to stay silent and allowed Nirav Modi to flee the country,” Rahul claimed. He said the Modi-government has failed in handling financial matters and foreign policies.

Pooja at Vinayaka temple
Kolar: Rahul Gandhi began his latest round of campaigning with pooja at the famous Kurudu Vinayaka temple in Mulbagal on Saturday. Mulabagal is considered an auspicious place where former prime minister Deve Gowda and former chief minister S M Krishna had also launched their electioneering.