With the election campaign now focusing on the second phase, the BJP has trained its guns on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with Home Minister Amit Shah taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi and Congress allies, calling them out on their previous statements on Kashmir. The BJP had also earlier mocked him for lacking the courage to file his nomination from Amethi.
Amit Shah, while holding a roadshow in Udaipur on Friday after the first phase voting ended, mocked Rahul Gandhi for his earlier remarks that the removal of Article 370 will lead to 'bloodbath' in Kashmir.
Addressing the rally, Shah said, "In Kashmir, (Peoples Democratic Party chief) Mehbooba Mufti and (Congress leader) Rahul Baba (Gandhi) used to say there would be bloodbath here once Article 370 is removed."
"Rahul Baba, five years have passed (since the abrogation of Article 370). This is the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Leave alone the talk of the bloodbath, no one has the guts to throw a stone there," he added.
Earlier the day, BJP spokesperson and MP Sudhanshu Trivedi, while asserting that people have rallied around Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a strong and decisive government, took a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, mocking him as the "self-declared" leader of the opposition INDIA bloc.
Trivedi said Gandhi has still not been able to gather the courage to file his nomination from Amethi, the Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh which had been a Gandhi family pocket borough before he lost to the BJP's Smriti Irani in 2019.
Though there are speculations regarding Rahul's candidature from Amethi, there has been no official announcement yet.
BJP chief J P Nadda, during his Kerala visit, too hit out at Rahul Gandhi, calling both him and Priyanka Gandhi "political tourists."
"They come for the election and then vanish. How can you take their statements seriously?," Naddha commented on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's allegation that if there is no glitch in the EVMs, the BJP is not going to win more than 180 seats.
"When they win in Karnataka, they have no issues with EVMs. When they ruled Rajasthan for five years, they had no issues with the EVMs," the BJP chief said.
Nadda launched a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi accusing the Congress' Wayanad Lok Sabha candidate of believing in dynastic rule, which, according to him, is detrimental to Indian democracy.
He alleged that Gandhi, who is facing a probe in the National Herald case, has no other option but to protect corrupt people.
"Rahul Gandhi is driven by family politics and is implementing the same. The politics of appeasement is his motto. In Delhi, Rahul Gandhi is hand-in-glove with D Raja, whereas in Wayanad, he is contesting against his wife. This is why he is known as a man without any political stance," Nadda said.
While campaigning for BJP-led NDA's Wayanad candidate Surendran, who will battle Rahul Gandhi and CPI candidate Annie Raja, Naddha said Rahul Gandhi was practising the policies of "divide and rule" and "vote-bank politics" in the country. "Rahul Gandhi believes in the politics of appeasement. He represents dynastic rule and engages in vote-bank politics," Nadda added.
