FRAGRANCE OF IDEAS
Consequent upon the latest election results in Haryana, Jammu, Maharashtra and the by-elections in a number of states, BJP seems to have decided to change its gear in terms of Congress and 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 under severe attack from the BJP, officially, on this issue. The irony is that the Congress has maintained semi-silence on the issue as yet. This is surely a new development which is also a signal to the intense future public discourse in this regard.
Over the last ten years, a vicious campaign was unleashed by the Congress against the PM Narendra Modi, BJP, NDA and also the other components of Hindutva narrative. In essence, there was always a one-sided narrative going on against all of them and it was spearheaded by none other than Rahul Gandhi himself, being the topmost leader of his party. People in the country were astonished to note and believe that 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 kind of a one-sided diatribe against the PM by Rahul Gandhi and his other colleagues in the Congress had no parallel in the political history of the nation. No political leader of prominence and stature in the country has ever dared to vomit such a 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 the PM Modi would be beaten by sticks by the youth of the country”.
The current leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and his coterie in the past raised a number of issues to create doubts in the minds of the people about the honesty and integrity of the PM Modi and the government headed by him. Congress received toolkits against the government and PM Modi before and during parliament sessions to disrupt and impact the process of parliamentary proceedings. The issues like Rafale, BBC news story, Pigasus or Hindenburg report were all used to damage the image of the government headed by 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, malign the position of the Prime Minister and also create doubts about the image of the country in the international arena.
The Congress, as a consequence of the nature of the Lok Sabha results this year, concluded that it had got a license 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, 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 coupled with the results of the by-elections took all steam out of the chambers of Congress-engine within a short period of six months and 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 the Congress and Rahul Gandhi; and has sent clear hints in this connection all around.
The BJP taking a cue from this scenario, and also from certain important information available with it, has now unleashed a pointed offensive against the Congress and its top leadership in and outside the parliament. In its official handle on X (formerly Twitter), 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 organization that has an official stand against the position of India on Kashmir. She is a designated co-President of the FDL-AP Foundation which is financed by the George Soros Foundation of US. 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 organizations.
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 criticize Adani. This demonstrates a strong and dangerous connection aimed at destabilizing 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 BJP alleged that the US “deep state’ had worked with the OCCRP and Rahul Gandhi, leader of 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 for the purpose of derailing the Indian economy and maligning the Modi government. Dubey said that 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 the Congress and its leaders in Rajya Sabha about 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 in regard to the unity, integrity, peace, progress and the 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 to destabilize India. He called Rahul Gandhi the ‘traitor of the highest order’. In the Rajya Sabha, the BJP has now demanded discussion on George Soros’s NGO and Sonia Gandhi while a similar discussion might be on cards also in the Lok Sabha. The Congress in order to divert the discussion on the issue 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. was seen enacting a ‘comedy circus’ in the name of protests against Modi-Adani combine in the parliament courtyard on this Monday.
In case the Central government decides to put cases pertaining to the National Herald, Agustawestland report from Italy, citizenship issue of Rahul Gandhi on the front burner, the Congress and its entire leadership will be caught up in a 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 in the near future.
(The author is a senior BJP & KP leader, human rights defender, author and columnist and can be reached at [email protected])
