Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi during the INDIA bloc meeting on June 8 called Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and INDIA bloc partners ‘confused’ and said the confusion is that the SP, the TMC, the RJD believe that the political instruments they have used so far will still work. He added that these only worked when the Indian state provided a fair field for them to operate in.
Rahul alleges BJP controls all institutions of the state
Alleging that the BJP controls the institutions of the state, he said the saffron party controls the legal system, the bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies and the Election Commission.
“I am sorry to say that there is a confusion in this group. The confusion is that you — the SP, the TMC, the RJD, etc. — believe that the political instruments you have used so far will still work. These only worked when the Indian state provided a fair field for them to operate in. That field does not exist anymore. The BJP controls the institutions of the state. The BJP controls the legal system. The BJP controls the bureaucracy. The BJP controls the intelligence agencies. The BJP even controls the Election Commission.
He said that he has many friends in the TMC and they were convinced that they were sweeping the election, however, he kept telling them that they are in dreamland. “I have seen what happens — I have seen it in Gujarat, I have seen it in Madhya Pradesh, I have seen it in Chhattisgarh, I have seen it in Haryana and Maharashtra. And yet many of you are still not convinced,” he said.
He added that the Congress Party is a party of resistance and it does not require the neutrality of the Indian state to operate. “In fact, the more the institutions of the Indian state are throttled, the more aggressively the Congress Party will fight to defend the Constitution. All of us share the ideals of the Congress Party. What are those ideals? Satya, ahimsa and compassion,” he said.
Will accept all criticism happily with a smile on our face: Rahul
He added that it is not his place to answer any of the things that were said today about the Congress Party. “It is my place to — like in the Shaiva tradition — swallow everything. The idea of the blue-necked One (Shiva) who drinks all the poison. Whatever more you want to say, whatever criticism you have of me or the Congress Party — we will accept it, and we will accept it happily, with a smile on our face,” he said.
He said he has no interest in fighting with INDIA bloc members. “I would have to be a madman to suddenly get up and say I am going to fight you — because you are our allies, you are our friends, you are the people we love. Please understand: we won the last election in 2024. We did not lose the 2024 election. You ask why Nitish ji left — it was not because of me, not because of the Congress,” he said.
He said in the near future, those few instruments that used to work will stop working, because the BJP and RSS are tightening their grip on the Indian state. “The Congress Party, faced this very same decision more than a hundred years ago. We were a political organisation before 1927. The day Gandhiji said we want independence, we became a resistance movement,” he said.
Rahul says the main problem is capture of instruments of India by RSS
“You are thinking that the challenge is winning the next election. The next election is already won. Please understand: there is so much anger among the people of India that the next election is already over. The problem is the capture of the instruments of the Indian state by the RSS. The problem is that you will not have a free and fair election to win,” he added.
He told the INDIA bloc members to get rid of the notion that all are not coordinated and do not act together. “These are all ideas the BJP is putting out. This is not true — I am 100% sure, and I can vouch right now for the DMK. When it comes to defending the idea of India, every single person will be in this room. We have our fights, but if you are asking me to go and hug the ex-Chief Minister of Kerala — I cannot and I will not, because I have an on-going political fight with him. So we have to be flexible and we have to realise that there is a full-scale assault on us, trying to prove that the opposition is weak,” he said.
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