Seeking to convey that the tide was turning against the Narendra Modi government, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday claimed that the people in the country were beginning to question Prime Minister on his “lies” even as there is a positive sentiment towards the Congress.
Referring to the court's verdict in the 2G case, which had formed the centrepiece of the BJP's attacks on the then Manmohan Singh government over its alleged corruption scandals, Rahul, in his opening remarks at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee, said, “At the national level we have seen how, possibly the biggest instrument used against our government—the 2G issue—has turned out to be fake. So the idea, their model, is to come up with a lie, spread that lie, and just keep repeating that lie until people believe the lie.”
He said the good news that he can see is that “people are now beginning to question it. Across the country, they are questioning Mr Modi on the economy, they're questioning Mr Modi when he insults our ex-Prime Minister. So that feeling is coming up and there is a positive sentiment towards the Congress party.”
Therein lies a lot of opportunity for the Congress that the party needs to step into and take advantage of, he said.
The Congress is eager to change the political narrative ahead of the coming elections, especially the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. It wants the discourse to be focused on the development plank of Modi, and the effort would be to expose its perceived failures. And it is banking on what is seen as a change in the popular sentiment towards the Modi government.
Referring to the recent assembly elections, Rahul said the Gujarat campaign was an eye-opener and a unique experience for him, and remarked that he got to see first hand the way the BJP designs its campaigns and uses “hatred and untruth” to fight elections.
Stressing on the Congress line that the Modi dispensation is all about false promises, he said one of the successes of the party in Gujarat was dismantling of the “Modi model of development.”
“I was surprised when I went to Gujarat. I went there thinking that I will make apparent the flaws in the Modi model... And, I was surprised to see that it is universally understood by the people of Gujarat that this a flawed, fake model.”
He said the main expression was that Modi has handed over Gujarat to a few vested interests and that he has taken tremendous benefits from the state but it has not received anything in return.
He strongly criticised the BJP for “polarising” the campaign. “Our party played a very positive role in keeping everybody together. And then we also saw how in their desperation, the prime minister himself accused Manmohan Singh ji of complete blatant falsehood and a lie. And he has had nothing to say about that since then.”
Rahul, for whom this was the first CWC meeting as president of the party, said he wished to institutionalise the meetings of the committee so that it would meet once every two months. “And, every two months automatically, the Working Committee meets so that we can hear what you want to say and what the nation is feeling,” he said.
