Due to the latest election results in Haryana, Jammu, Maharashtra, and the by-elections in several states, the BJP seems to have decided to change its gear regarding Congress, especially its leader, Rahul Gandhi. This was evident from the debates inside and outside the Parliament last week. Prominent members of Parliament like Nishikant Dubey in the Lok Sabha, Sudhanshu Trivedi in the Rajya Sabha and Sambit Patra in a press conference outside the Parliament, went head-on against the Congress accusing it and its leader Rahul Gandhi of consciously taking an anti-national position in private and public and called Rahul Gandhi straightway a traitor (gadhaar). Sonia Gandhi is also officially under severe attack by the BJP on this issue. The irony is that Congress has maintained semi-silence on the issue as yet. This is surely a new development that is also a signal to the intense future public discourse.
Over the last ten years, a vicious campaign was unleashed by the Congress against PM Narendra Modi, the BJP, the NDA and also the other components of the Hindutva narrative. In essence, there was always a one-sided narrative against all of them, and it was spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, the topmost leader of his party. People in the country were astonished to note and believe there was no direct response either by the BJP or the PM to the narrative of this nature engineered by the Congress and its echo system.
The one-sided rant against the PM by Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues in Congress had no parallel in the nation’s political history. No political leader of prominence and stature in the country has ever dared to vomit such venom against the ruling party and its leader in the Lok Sabha, the PM. But the Congress and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, have done this continuously for the last ten years without a break. Nobody has forgotten the shameless accusations levelled by Rahul Gandhi against the PM when he said, “Chowkidar chor hai’ or ‘that sticks would beat the PM Modi by the youth of the country”.
The current leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and his coterie in the past raised several issues to create doubts in the people’s minds about the honesty and integrity of PM Modi and the government he headed. Congress received toolkits against the government and PM Modi before and during parliament sessions to disrupt and impact the process of parliamentary proceedings. Issues like Rafale, BBC news stories, Pigasus, and Hindenburg reports were all used to damage the government’s image, headed by PM Modi. Recently, the proceedings of the Justice Department of the US about the companies of businessman Adani were also exploited to disrupt the proceedings of the Parliament by the Congress aimed to distort the stature of the government, damage the industrial progress of the country, accuse the position of the Prime Minister and also create doubts about the image of the country in the international arena.
Due to the nature of the Lok Sabha results this year, the Congress concluded that it had a licence to go against the government and the PM in and outside the Parliament. Rahul Gandhi made all attempts to disrupt the Parliament, instigate other opposition members to come to the well of the house, and accuse the Central government and the Prime Minister of having an open deal with the industrialists and the big businessmen of the country to further their mutual interests and stopping the caste-census in the country which was a poll plank of the Indi-alliance during the general elections. However, the assembly results and the by-elections took all steam out of the chambers of Congress-engine within six months; their narrative against the PM and the government fell apart, losing both speed and seriousness. Indi-alliance has also lost faith in the leadership of Congress and Rahul Gandhi, and it has sent clear hints about this connection.
The BJP, taking a cue from this scenario and the important information available, has now unleashed a pointed offensive against the Congress and its top leadership in and outside the Parliament. In its official handle on X, BJP, in a series of posts, accused Sonia Gandhi, the Chairperson of the Congress legislature party in the Parliament, of having a dubious relationship with the organisations that have an official stand against the position of India on Kashmir. She is a designated co-president of the FDL-AP Foundation, which the George Soros Foundation of the US finances. BJP accuses Sonia Gandhi, who is also the Chairperson of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, of a partnership with the Soros Foundation, showcasing the impact of foreign funding on Indian organisations.
The party further pointed out that Rahul Gandhi’s press conference on Adani was broadcast live by the Soros-funded OCCRP (a media platform based in Amsterdam best known for its ‘investigative journalism’ on crime and corruption), which Gandhi used as a source to criticise Adani. This demonstrates a strong and dangerous connection aimed at destabilising India’s economy. The BJP, in this context, also highlighted a post of the Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor’s post in which he described Soros as an ‘old friend’. The allegations came after the BJP alleged that the US “deep state’ had worked with the OCCRP and Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, to harm India’s reputation and image.
Bhartiya Janta Party MP Nishikant Dubey said that he would ask 10 questions to Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha on the issue. Dubey said, “I repeatedly read the US embassy’s (recent) statement. They admitted that the US government funds OCCRP, and Soros’s foundation also supports it.” He further said that OCCRP and Soros are in league with the opposition in India to derail the Indian economy and malign the Modi government. Dubey said he would like to question Rahul Gandhi and cited his locus standi by invoking the provisions of Lok Sabha Rule 357. On the same lines, Sudhanshu Trivedi raised questions regarding Congress and its leaders in Rajya Sabha and their relations with the external forces who have been visibly seen damaging the cause of India at the international level. He also raised an alarm about the intent of the Congress and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, regarding the unity, integrity, peace, progress and economic development of the country.
The BJP MP and National Spokesperson, Sambit Patra, spoke at length on the dangerous triangle between Soros/US deep state agencies, OCCRP and Congress as they were hell-bent on destabilising India. He called Rahul Gandhi the ‘traitor of the highest order’. In the Rajya Sabha, the BJP has now demanded a discussion on George Soros’s NGO and Sonia Gandhi, while a similar discussion might also be on the cards in the Lok Sabha. To divert the discussion on the issue, the Congress is trying to bring a no-confidence motion against the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The party is surely under tremendous pressure due to the fierce attack by the ruling BJP-NDA. Unfortunately for Congress, their leader, Rahul Gandhi, is overwhelmed with non-seriousness, arrogance and a false sense of entitlement. When the Parliament was supposed to discuss all important issues of public concern, Rahul Gandhi and co. were seen enacting a ‘comedy circus’ in the name of protests against the Modi-Adani combine in the parliament courtyard on December 9.
If the Union government decides to put cases about the National Herald, the AgustaWestland report from Italy, and the citizenship issue of Rahul Gandhi on the front burner, the Congress and its entire leadership will be caught up in serious trouble. The postures and statements emanating from the ruling bloc in this connection are enough a hint for such a future course of action. It is perceived that the Modi government, NDA and the BJP have surely decided to go for a decisive political battle in this regard shortly.
