Rahul Gandhi launches fresh attack on BJP, says it’s a fight between courage and cowardice

London: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched a fresh attack on the BJP, asserting that it is a struggle between courage and cowardice and love and hate.

Gandhi, who is in London as part of a week-long visit to England, made the comments during his interaction with the Indian diaspora organized by the Indian Overseas Congress.

“The more they attack me, the better for me, because I understand … it’s a fight between courage and cowardice. It’s a fight between honor and disrespect, between love and hate. As I said during the pilgrimage: Nafrat ke bazaar mein, hum mohabat ki dukhan kolne. Aye Hain (In the market of hate, we want to set up a shop that spreads love),” he said amid applause.

The 52-year-old Congress MP said he was invited to give a lecture at Cambridge University and lamented that an Indian political leader could not freely address a university in India.

It made me think (at Cambridge University) that an Indian political leader can give a speech at Cambridge University, Harvard University, but he cannot speak at an Indian university, Gandhi said. The conference, which was themed “Unity, Diversity and Inclusion”, was greeted with cheers and chants of Zindabad as thousands gathered.

“The reason is that our government does not allow us to discuss any of the views of the opposition parties. When we have to talk about important issues like demonetisation, GST, etc., the same thing happens in the Parliament House. The Chinese are sitting within our borders and we are not allowed to raise them in the House. ,” he said amid chants of “shame, shame” from an estimated 2,000-strong crowd.

“It’s shameful, but it’s true, this is not the India we’re all used to. Ours is an open country, proud of our intelligence, a country that respects each other’s opinions, listens to each other. Destroyed,” he said.

Gandhi reiterated that he was forced to embark on his Bharat Jodo Yatra, a 4,000-km walk from Kanyakumari in the south to Kashmir in the north of India, because all the institutions that protect democracy and allow voice expression were “captured by the BJP”.

He said that his Bharat Jodo Yatra has proved to the whole country what real India is.

“What are Indian values? What do our religions tell us? What do our different languages tell us? What do our different cultures tell us (that) we are one country with many, many different ideas. And we have the capacity to live in unity without hatred. Without anger, without disrespect, Only when we do that, we succeed and that is the message of the Yatra,” he said.

He switched to English and Hindi during his speech and revived his concerns about India-China relations.

Attacking the BJP, the former Congress leader said, “On the other hand, we have an ideology of hatred and violence, an ideology of disrespect that attacks people for their opinions. And this is one thing you should have noticed. BJP and RSS.”

“If you look at the foreign minister’s statement, China is more powerful than us. To think that China is more powerful than us, how can I fight with them? Cowardice is at the core of the ideology,” he said. Referring to the comments made by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar during an interview.

The BJP accused Gandhi of praising China and insulting India on foreign soil.

Gandhi’s remarks at Cambridge University that Indian democracy was under attack and that many politicians, including himself, were under surveillance, accused him of defaming India and sparked a political backlash for the Bharatiya Janata Party over whether Gandhi was working as an agent in the pay of an agency. To bring down the country.

The event was organized by the Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) UK wing, which introduced Gandhi as the “next Prime Minister of India” and called on diaspora supporters to support the party’s vision unleashed by the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

“No one has accomplished such a long pilgrimage and as we look ahead to 2024 (general elections), the diaspora will play a major role in that. And that support is visible today by filling this biggest hall in West London from different parts of England,” said IOC UK President Kamalpreet Thaliwal.