After challenging BJP that the opposition alliance will defeat the party in Gujarat in his maiden address in the 18th Lok Sabha early this month, Rahul Gandhi brought the political battle to the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
Visiting Ahmedabad to meet the party workers and families of the victims of Rajkot fire tragedy, Vadodara boat tragedy and Morbi bridge collapse, Gandhi used the occasion to launch a severe attack on Modi and BJP.
He harped on BJP’s defeat in Ayodhya (Faizabad constituency) in the recent Lok Sabha elections and underlined that the politics of the party was based on Ram Temple that had caught momentum with the Rath Yatra of LK Advani in 1990.
Referring to his conversation with Avdhesh Prasad, the SP member of Lok Sabha from Faizabad, Gandhi said while the people of Ayodhya did not get compensation for their land requisitioned by the government for the development of the city, the poor people of Ayodhya were not to be seen during the inauguration of the grand temple though the industrialists were visible.
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He claimed that Modi wanted to contest from Ayodhya but decided against it after conducting surveys thrice and all the three surveys indicated defeat for him. Hence the prime minister contested from Varanasi and barely scraped through, Gandhi claimed. (Modi’s victory margin came down to about 1.5 lakh votes from about 4.8 lakh votes in 2019.)The opposition India bloc has defeated BJP at Ayodhya and the next step would be to defeat them in Gujarat, Gandhi said. He said BJP has challenged Congress by attacking the Congress office in Ahmedabad and the party will respond by defeating BJP in Gujarat.
Taking a jibe at the prime minister, Gandhi said if Modi had such a direct connection with God, how could he lose Ayodhya.
He further alleged that no one in the BJP leadership actually wants Modi as the leader but nobody in BJP has the courage to stand by their conviction.
“In Congress, neither our workers are scared to talk to the leadership nor the leadership is afraid to hear the workers,” Gandhi said.