Patna, Jan 18: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday vowed to inflict an ‘ideological defeat” on the BJP-RSS combine in Bihar, a “land of revolution” where assembly elections were due later this year.
Gandhi, who was on his first visit to the state after last year’s Lok Sabha polls, addressed party workers at the historical Sadaqat Ashram, shortly after delivering a speech at a ‘Samvidhan Suraksha Sammelan’.
“The nation is witnessing a fight between Samvidhan and Manuvad,” said Gandhi, who also claimed that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent statement that the country got “true Independence” only after the consecration of Ram temple at Ayodhya last year was a virtual “disowning of the Constitution”.
“Bhagwat implies that he does not believe that Independence was achieved in 1947, and does not believe in the Constitution. In a way, he wants to say the Ganges does not originate at the Gangotri,” the former Congress president claimed.
“We must remember the fight with the BJP-RSS combine that stands for violence and hatred is an ideological one,” he alleged.
Congress workers must fight against the RSS and the BJP ideologically day and night, Gandhi said.
“Bihar is going to the next big election in the country. It is a land of revolution (Krantikari Pradesh). Congress workers, and the INDIA bloc at large, must resolve to inflict an ideological defeat on them,” he said.
In an apparent reference to the ongoing row over BPSC exams, he said Bihar had become “a centre of question paper leaks” even as he lamented the “high rate of unemployment which had converted the state into a factory of labourers”.
Calling workers of his party “lions” (babbar sher), Gandhi rued that the Congress was facing several odds with the Election Commission allegedly not addressing its concerns. (PTI)
