Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to understand that her father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not inherit the wealth but the feeling of martyrdom from her mother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra said in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena on Thursday, in the midst of Lok Sabha elections.
“How do I explain [to myself] when Modi ji calls my father a traitor from stage, when Modi ji says that my father changed some law to get the inheritance from her mother? Modi ji will not understand that my father did not get money and wealth but shahadat ki bhavna [feeling of martyrdom] as inheritance. You can understand this as you have sent your sons to the border and they attain martyrdom for this country,” Ms. Vadra said as she responded to Mr. Modi’s allegations that Rajiv Gandhi had axed the inheritance law when he became Prime Minister to “avoid paying tax on the wealth he inherited from his mother”.
Ms. Vadra was addressing an election rally in Morena, part of the State’s Gwalior-Chambal region that sees many youth joining the forces.
The Prime Minister had also made his remarks about Rajiv Gandhi at a rally in Morena on April 25.
“When former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi died, her children were going to get her property. But there was a rule earlier, that before the property goes to the children some part of it was taken by the government. Congress had formulated a law on this. To save the property so that it does not go to the government, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi scrapped the inheritance law. After accumulating wealth over four generations, now they want to loot your wealth,” Mr. Modi had said.
Ms. Vadra said she was angry with the country when she, at the age of 19, brought the mortal remains of her father. “I was feeling that I had sent my father safely to you [the nation] and you sent him back in pieces wrapped in the national flag,” she said, adding that she understood what martyrdom meant.
“I am 52 today and have said this thing on stage for the first time,” said Ms. Vadra, adding that she eventually realised that this kind of anger was only towards those you love.
“Modi ji cannot understand the feeling of martyrdom, who talks rubbish against a martyr like Indira Gandhi and only sees familism with this feeling instead of the service to the nation, cannot understand this,” she said.
Cases against Rahul
Ms. Vadra said several cases had been filed against her brother and MP Rahul Gandhi and he kept running around the courts for them.
“They expelled my brother from the Parliament, have filed many cases against him that he keeps running around. He will do so but even if they kill us, nobody can take this feeling out of our hearts,” she said.
Ms. Vadra hit out at the BJP and Mr. Modi over the recent controversy around the Covishield vaccine administered during the COVID pandemic.
“You must have seen Mr. Modi’s face on the vaccine certificate, but now we have found out that there is a possibility of heart attack due to that vaccine. They even took donations from that company [Serum Institute of India],” she alleged.
Three-way fight
Morena is set to witness a close three-way fight among two former MLA candidates from the BJP and the Congress and an industrialist from the BSP.
The Congress has fielded Satyapal Singh Sikarwar, a former BJP MLA from the Sumawali Assembly seat, who hails from an influential political family. He is taking on BJP’s former MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar and the BSP’s Ramesh Garg, a businessperson.
Ms. Vadra’s rally is also likely to have an impact on other seats of the Gwalior-Chambal belt, including Gwalior and Bhind that are also witnessing a close contest between the BJP and the Congress.
The three seats, along with six other seats of the State, will go to polls in the third phase on May 7.
