New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the Congress was defeating the BJP in the ideological fight and in the daily news cycle and said that the party MPs had fought “animosity and unfairness” over the last five years.
Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting here, the last such meeting of the 16th Lok Sabha, Gandhi said the party was now firmly entrenched in the minds of the people. He accused the Modi government of “systematic attacks” on institutions and causing divisions in the society.
Gandhi also said that the Congress stood out among other opposition parties.
“If you analyse that fully and with respect to all my opposition friends, there is only one party that speaks for the entire country. Every other party speaks for a part of Indian society, and we say this with a lot of pride, that we are the uniting party in this country and we say this also with respect to our opposition (friends).”
He said the Congress was the first to defend the idea of India. “It is our duty to defend the institutions of this country and we cannot leave this to anybody else.”
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of corruption, he said: “You can see it on his face, you can see the expression, you can see that. The bluster has gone. And that is not due to Rahul Gandhi. It is the Congress party, Congress workers and all of you. I get my strength from you, so you project your strength into me and I use your energy to do my job.”
Gandhi said that the common man had realised that “Modi is not what he claimed to be, that the RSS is not what they claim to be”.
Gandhi said the Congress had only 40 plus members in the outgoing Lok Sabha while the BJP had 280 plus members.
“Everybody thought that the voice of 40 members could not possibly be heard in front of 280 plus members who are trained RSS ideologues who just repeat themselves again and again. We had quite a difficult time in both Houses and I refer of course not to the Rajya Sabha but the Lok Sabha where senior members were forced to go to the well, senior members were forced to shout for days,” he said.
He said Congress leaders had raised their issues despite facing difficulties.
“With respect to past Lok Sabhas and Rajya Sabhas, because of the numbers, I don’t think there was any other Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha where the type of animosity, unfairness, in fact done by the institution itself and the role of the members of the BJP was there. So I very proudly as a Congressman say thank you and say that you have made us all very proud,” he said.
[source_without_link]IANS[/source_without_link]