Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on a 10-day tour to the US, took a swipe at the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating that "some groups in India have the disease of being under the impression that they know everything."
Addressing the Indian diaspora at an event titled 'Mohabbat ki Dukaan' in San Francisco on Wednesday, Rahul said: "In India, we grew up with people of different languages, different religions. And that is what is being attacked. The tradition in India, of people like Gandhi Ji and Guru Nanak Ji, has been that you should not be under the impression of knowing everything. It is a 'disease' that some groups of India think that they know everything. Even if they have a conversation with God, they might explain to him."
Sharpening his attack, Rahul said: "And of course, Prime Minister is one of them. If you make him sit with God, he would start explaining to him (God) how the universe works…and God would get confused about what I had created."
"They (BJP) can speak to scientists and explain science to them. They can explain history to historians, warfare to the army and flying to the air force. But at the heart of it, they don’t know anything," Rahul said.
The Congress leader, who was recently disqualified from the Parliament, added that he had to take out 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' because all instruments of doing politics and connecting with people were "being controlled" by the RSS and the BJP.
He added that the "whole India" walked with him during the Yatra. "While walking we realised that normal instruments for doing politics (connecting with people) were not working anymore. They were controlled by the BJP and RSS. People are threatened and agencies are used against them. In some way, it had become quite difficult to act politically. That is why we decided to walk from the southernmost tip of India to Srinagar.”
Rahul also accused the BJP of trying everything to stop his yatra but nothing work against the "effect" of the yatra. He added that it was during the Yatra that the idea of 'Nafrat Ke Bazaar Mein Mohabbat Ki Dukaan' came up to his mind.
"Not just in India, 'Bharat Jodo' is an idea which is about respecting each other and being affectionate to each other. It is about not being violent towards each other, not being arrogant. And I did nothing compared to Guru Nanak Ji. I read that he walked to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. He was doing Bharat Jodo much before. In Karnataka, Basavana ji. In Kerala, Narayan Guruji, every state has had these giants," he said.
He also praised the people who attended the event, adding that Indians absorbed every idea that came to them and never rejected anything. "You were not here if you had not believed in this. If you had believed in anger, hatred, and arrogance, you would have gone to BJP, and I would have started ‘Mann ki Baat'," he added.
Gandhi said India is not what is being shown in the media which likes to promote a political narrative that is far from reality, asserting that there is a "huge distortion".
"It was very clear to me in the Yatra that it's in the media's interest to project these things, it helps the BJP. So, don't think that everything you see in the media is the truth," he said. "India is not what the media shows. The media likes to show a particular narrative. It likes to promote a political narrative that is actually not what is going on in India," he said.
According to Indian Overseas Congress chairperson Sam Pitroda, said Gandhi's visit is aimed at promoting shared values and a vision of real democracy. "The purpose of his (Gandhi's) trip is to connect, interact and begin a new conversation with various individuals, institutions and media, including the Indian diaspora that is growing in numbers in the United States and abroad to promote the shared values and vision of the real democracy with a focus on freedom, inclusion, sustainability, justice, peace and opportunities world over, Pitroda said in a statement.
