Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Sunday took a swipe at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, wondering why former president of the grand old party is even taken “seriously”. The minister made the remarks in response to Gandhi’s recent statement on the BJP and RSS wherein he said the parties have captured all institutions and the Constitution only exists in name.
“Why do you all take Rahul Gandhi seriously? All institutions are working well…Whenever they (Congress) are defeated, they blame it on [the] institutions (Election Commission),” Joshi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Jugal Thakor Lokhandwala also hit back at Gandhi, saying the saffron camp believes in ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Viswas and Sabka Prayas’ and Prime Minister Narendra Modi works on this mantra.
“I don’t think it is right to react to Rahul Gandhi’s statement because he does not know what RSS is and what BJP is and how they work,” Lokhandwala told ANI.
The Rajya Sabha MP further stated that Gandhi should know who imposed “emergency and who kept the whole country under control”.
Lokhandwala said the Congress party should look into their “own history”. “What are Congress people doing?”
Gandhi’s comments have become the latest flashpoint between the Congress and the BJP. He made the remarks while giving an interview during his Madhya Pradesh leg of ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Indore last week. He alleged that all institutions – Parliament, judiciary, media and bureaucracy, among others, “have stopped working”.
Joshi and Lokhandwala sharp reactions to Gandhi come in a day when the Congress’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukku took oath as the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. The swearing-in ceremony occurred amid boiling tension between the grand old party’s top brass and the family of late Virbhadra Singh – the former CM of the northern hill state – over sidetracking his wife Pratibha Singh, who was reportedly in the run to become the next chief minister. However, Pratibha said that she accepted her party’s decision and was also pictured getting a hug from Gandhi at the oath-taking event.
Congress registered a big victory in Himachal Pradesh in the 2022 assembly elections, claiming 40 of the 68 seats. The BJP, which headed the previous government, managed to bag 25 seats and thereby, failed to break the anti-incumbency that the hill state has been witnessing since 1985.
