Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
While Congress president Rahul Gandhi maintained silence on the BJP’s criticism of him over an alleged remark attributed to him during an interaction with Muslim intellectuals, his party continued to defend him and slam the BJP, accusing the ruling party of trying to create a Hindu-Muslim divide with an eye on 2019 elections.
The Congress on Monday likened the BJP to the British East India Company.
Congress communication department head Randeep Surjewala told reporters, “The Prime Minister is a failed Prime Minister and defeat in the 2019 general elections is staring in his face. So the entire BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now dependent upon only one thing – polarise, polarise and polarise. Like the East India Company, the simple principle that Prime Minister Modi and the BJP follow today is divide, divide and divide even more to rule.”
He alleged that Modi and the BJP are doing “everything at their disposal to ensure that the atmosphere of hatred and division between communities becomes so prominent that the issues of governance and delivery pale into insignificance”, and that “nobody asks the Prime Minister where the acche din are.”
Surjewala also accused the PM of using the “bogey of minority” to evade issues related to governance, as he has “failed on all fronts”. He said, “What Rahul Gandhi said was that India belongs to, that Congress belongs to, 132 crore Indians…”