Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday sharpened his attack on the Congress, calling it a “disciple” of Pakistan and said the neighbouring country was eager to see Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India after the Lok Sabha election.
Mr. Modi’s statement came after a former Pakistan Minister Fawad Hussain tweeted a video of Mr. Gandhi and captioned the post “Rahul on fire…”.
Addressing four election rallies in different Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, Mr. Modi doubled down on his charge that the Congress was planning to give reservation to Muslims. He said the party had a “dangerous mentality” and said its manifesto was written in the “language of the Muslim League”.
“When the Congress released its manifesto, I alerted the country, especially the intellectuals, that the Congress manifesto is a red alert for the country. I said that I could see the image of the Muslim League in their manifesto, which many thought was a mere political statement,” he said in Jamnagar.
This is not the first time Mr. Modi has referred to Pakistan in an election speech and linked it with the Congress. In the run-up to the Gujarat Assembly election in 2017, he had accused former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of “holding a secret meeting with Pakistan diplomats to conspire against him”.
“You all might have known by now that Pakistan political leaders are praying for a Congress victory. Pakistan is now eager to make the prince of the Congress the Prime Minister of India,” Mr. Modi said in Anand.
“The partnership between the Congress and Pakistan has been exposed. The enemies of the nation including Pakistan want a weak government in India. They want a corrupt government which was there before 2014. Modi’s strong government does not bow down to anyone,” he said.
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In Junagadh, Mr. Modi said the region would have gone to Pakistan had Sardar Patel not intervened. “If Sardar Patel was not present, Junagadh would have gone to Pakistan. The Congress will create a dangerous situation for the country if it comes to power. They may give away the Kutch desert claiming no one lives there,” he said.
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Mr. Modi said Congress leaders have “inherited the mentality of partition”. “The Congress accepted the country’s partition for the sake of power. It gifted Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka as if it was their personal property,” he said.
Mr. Modi said the country had heard of “love jihad” but now a Congress leader has talked about “vote jihad”. “The INDIA bloc has asked Muslims to do vote jihad. By talking about vote jihad in the celebration of democracy, they have insulted democracy and the Constitution,” he said.
In Jamnagar, the Prime Minister, before addressing his rally, called on the former royal Shatrushalyasinh Jadeja and said he was happy to receive the blessings of ‘Jam Saheb’, as Mr. Jadeja is popularly called. The meeting with Mr. Jadeja was meant to pacify the Kshatriya community which is on a warpath with the ruling party over the controversial remarks by the BJP’s candidate in Rajkot Parshottam Rupala about former princely families and their alliances with the British during colonial times.
