“Daro Mat” (do not fear) was a combative Rahul Gandhi’s rallying cry to the Congress rank and file on Wednesday, ahead of the Assembly elections in five key States, even as he lit into Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of destroying the economy through demonetisation while frightening and intimidating not just the people — but also the media.
“This is a fight between two philosophies. This fight is thousands of years old,” he said, adding, “The Congress’s philosophy says, do not fear. The other philosophy says instil fear and scare them…Look at the BJP: its aim is to scare the people — fear terrorism, Maoism, demonetisation. In two-three months, they have spread this fear.”
Addressing a packed Talkatora Stadium here, he said the Congress would unseat the BJP in the general election of 2019. He asked the party workers to tell people that if they had been rendered jobless, they were still guaranteed 100 days of work under the MGNREGA and that no one could take away their land without paying the market price for it, as the Modi government was trying to do. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cautioned the people that the worst was yet to come in the wake of demonetisation, which he termed a “disaster.” He dismissed as “hollow” Mr. Modi’s claim that things had started looking up.
Mr. Gandhi’s speeches, delivered in a mix of Hindi and English, were sharp in tone. But he sought to set himself apart from the abrasive style of BJP leaders by stressing he did not hate the BJP or the RSS, only its ideology that the Congress would eventually defeat.
And if the Congress vice-president has often been the butt of Mr. Modi’s ridicule, he paid him back in the same coin, mimicking his tone, especially his fondness for starting his speeches with Mitron (friends). He also lampooned the PM, using a song from an Amitabh Bachchan starrer, Namak Halaal , to say Aapka toh lagta hai bas yahi sapna, ram ram japna garibo kaa maal apna [It seems your only dream is to take away money from poor while chanting the name of Ram]”.
The day-long national convention, attended by close to 6,000 of the party’s top leaders — including all those who had been actively engaged in organising protests across the country on the issue of demonetisation — was significant for another reason: the absence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
It underscored the fact that Mr. Gandhi, who made the inaugural remarks as well as the concluding speech, was already the party’s president, though an official announcement is awaited. It also comes on the heels of several party meetings over the last two months — including that of the Congress Working Committee and the Congress Parliamentary Party — over which Mr. Gandhi has presided.
