Like the United States, India too was witnessing a fight between different ideologies and the people of India would defeat the BJP’s ‘hate-filled ideology’ in the forthcoming Assembly elections, including the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said at a dinner event organised by the Indian Overseas Congress-USA in New York on Saturday.
Mr. Gandhi, who reached New York after visiting Washington and San Francisco, is scheduled to address a public meeting of the Indian diaspora at the Javits Centre in Manhattan on Sunday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams also attended the event that drew large number of Congress supporters, officials, and members of the Indian community.
Also read: Lessons from Karnataka: for the Congress, the BJP and the rest
The former Congress president said the fight in India was similar to the one in the U.S. and was about two different and competing visions. “One vision which is our vision — accepts everybody, embraces everybody, respects everybody, loves everybody, and wants everybody to be a part of the future of our country regardless of their religion, their community, their caste, their language. We are fighting our friends in the BJP…they have a very limited view of our country,” he said.
‘Will decimate BJP in Telangana’
Talking about the recent Karnataka poll, he claimed that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to polarise the election but it did not work as the elections were about inflation, unemployment and corruption.
“They [BJP] had the entire media, they had 10 times the amount of money we had, they had the government, they had the agency. They had everything and then we decimated them. And I want you to know that we are going to decimate them in Telangana next. It will be hard to find the BJP in Telangana after this election,” he added amid loud cheers and applause from the gathering.
Mr. Gandhi said that the Congress would do the same in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where elections are slated later this year.
“It is not just the Congress party that is going to defeat the BJP. It is the people of India, the people of Madhya Pradesh, the people of Telangana, the people of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh who are going to defeat the BJP,” he said, adding, “India has understood that it cannot go forward with the type of hatred that the BJP is spreading in society.” “That is what is going to happen in the next few States. And then after that in 2024 we will do the same…”
Earlier in the day, Mr. Gandhi interacted with prominent intellectuals and thinkers of New York at the Roosevelt House, home of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
