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Rahul Gandhi slammed for using 'distasteful' language for PM Modi

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Rahul Gandhi

Darbhanga/Muzaffarpur/Sitamarhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday sought to berate Prime Minister Narendra Modi over US President Donald Trump’s claim that India had agreed to halt military conflict with Pakistan “within five hours” of an ultimatum from America.

The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, whose fortnight-long “Voter Adhikar Yatra” in Bihar has three more days to go, covered north Bihar districts of Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur and Sitamarhi, all strongholds of the BJP-led NDA.

Addressing a rally in Sitamarhi’s Runni Saidpur late in the evening, before calling it a day, Gandhi said, “What type of Prime Minister do we have? He brags of having a 56-inch chest. But US President Donald Trump says that while Operation Sindoor was on, he called up Modi and told him to stop the military conflict within 24 hours. And Modi, like a deflated tyre (hawa nikal gayi), obeyed the command within five hours”.

Gandhi used informal and allegedly disrespectful language while referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Critics labeled his remarks as "rude" and "uncouth," sparking a debate on parliamentary decorum.

In the speech, during a discussion on Operation Sindoor – India's military action against Pakistan – Gandhi alleged that former US President Donald Trump called Modi with a 24-hour ultimatum to halt operations. 

He dramatised the call, saying, "Trump ne phone uthaya aur Narendra Modi ko kaha - yeh jo tum kar rahe ho, wo 24 ghanton mein band kar," which many deemed derogatory for addressing the PM. 

Social media influencers asked if Modiji had listened to Trump & halted Operation Sindoor, then why did Trump impose tariffs on India?

The former Congress president alleged that it only proves Modi is a coward.

“His (Modi’s) image is a product of his friends with deep pockets. He also receives some help from the media, which spends 10 days telecasting the wedding of a wealthy man’s son, but cannot spare 15 minutes for our Yatra in which lakhs of people are turning up daily,” Gandhi said.

The Congress leader claimed that when he challenged Modi in Parliament recently to call the bluff of Trump, he could not muster the courage to utter a word..

“I have met him a number of times. He seems hollow. A far cry from real heroes like Mahatma Gandhi who never boasted of a 56-inch chest,” the Congress leader said.

“Just imagine the pressure Mahatma Gandhi must have faced from the British Empire which was then a superpower. They placed him in jails, kept him in solitary confinement. But he stuck to his principles,” he said.

The Congress leader also alleged that the famed ‘Gujarat model’ which had helped the rise of Modi, its then chief minister, on the national stage, “was all about vote chori (theft of votes)”.

“It is the model (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah must have had in his mind when he had predicted that the BJP would rule the country for 30-40 years. Politicians like us know it well that public mood is fickle and we cannot be sure of what is going to happen tomorrow,” claimed Gandhi.

He said the Congress had begun to suspect something was amiss when it lost the assembly polls in Maharashtra, just a month after the Lok Sabha elections in which the alliance, of which the party was a part, had swept the western state.

“We polled as many votes in the Maharashtra assembly polls as we had in the Lok Sabha elections. But the BJP-led coalition saw a steep rise in its vote tally, which was commensurate with the number of new voters added to the electoral rolls within a span of a few months. Our request for access to CCTV footage of the elections was turned down by the Election Commission,” said Gandhi.

The EC seems to be gratified that the Modi government had passed a law in Parliament a few years ago providing legal immunity to Election Commissioners, he said adding: “Nonetheless, we persisted and managed to sift through a huge pile of documents to point out anomalies in the electoral roll for a Bangalore seat that we had lost.”

“In about six months from now, we will come out with many such disclosures which would establish that vote chori has been on in most places across the country. Even in the Lok Sabha polls, there were manipulations in 70-80 seats,” said Gandhi, referring to last year’s general elections which saw the BJP falling short of a majority and forming the government with the help of allies like JD(U) and TDP.

Gandhi, who has been accompanied by alliance partners Tejashwi Yadav (RJD) and Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI ML Liberation) all through the Yatra, began the day with a motorcycle rally which saw his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra pillion riding the bike he drove.

Vadra, who left in the afternoon, had been with the Yatra since Tuesday when she also addressed a public meeting in Madhubani.

In Muzaffarpur, the leaders were joined by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin, who told a rally that the deletion of 65 lakh voters’ names from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar, as part of special intensive revision, was “worse than terrorism”.

The rally also served as an ice-breaker as young Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar was seen shaking hands with Tejashwi Yadav. The perceived “rivalry” between the two leaders has been a matter of much speculation in a section of the media.

The BJP sought to fish in the INDIA bloc’s troubled waters by raking up controversial statements made by Stalin and his cabinet colleagues against the people of Bihar. A number of video clips were shared by former Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai on social media.

In addition, BJP workers in Patna burnt an effigy of Stalin and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, who had joined the Yatra a day ago and has been similarly accused of having belittled Bihar. PTI PKD NAC NN

Operation Sindoor Bihar Elections Bihar Assembly Elections India US trade dispute Bihar assembly polls India-US ties Bihar Election Watch India-Pakistan war Donald Trump Rahul Gandhi Narendra Modi