Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of resorting to lies to defend his London speech and said that the latter was trying to prove himself a ‘martyr’ in his disqualification from Lok Sabha to take political mileage in the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections.
“The fact is that businessman Adani issue has nothing to do with his disqualification. In fact, it is Rahul Gandhi, who is trying to distract the attention from his habit of speaking disparagingly about others and in this case the backward classes. It is the Surat court that served him sentence after he did not apologise for his casteist remark,” Prasad told media persons at the BJP office in Bihar’s capital, Patna.
Prasad said it was surprising why and how a number of senior lawyers in the Congress chose not to intervene to avoid this situation, as they did in the case of Congress leader Pawan Khera a few weeks ago. “As many as 32 other leaders, including six of the BJP and RJD leader Lalu Prasad, have been disqualified from the Lok Sabha. Seven cases of defamation on Gandhi are still pending in different courts, including one in Patna,” he added.
The BJP leader said the Congress was trying to take political mileage out of Rahul Ganahi’s disqualification, which was just a natural corollary of the court order and in line with provisions laid down under the Representation of People’s Act. “The BJP will go to the public to expose the deliberate attempt of Rahul Gadhi to belittling respect of backward classes (BCs),” said Prasad, adding that the party would undertake a nationwide campaign against the Congress leader for his bid to disgrace the backward classes.
Countering Rahul Gandhi’s statement that he did not invoke the foreign countries’ help to defend democracy in India, Prasad played an audio clip during the conference, (which, however, was not clearly audible), and alleged that the Congress leader usually go abroad to cry whenever he loses elections. “For him, democracy comes under threat when people do not vote for his party, election commission becomes partial and judiciary turns out to be weak,” said Prasad adding that they (the BJP) can’t help it if he (Rahul Gandhi) does not win elections.
“The leaders of the Congress must be ashamed of making baseless remarks about PM Modi, a powerful leader who has taken the developmental journey of India to newer heights, whose stewardship has made India the 5th largest economy in the world. Rahul Gandhi had complained that his phone had Pegasus. But he did not go to get his phone ‘checked’ when asked by the Supreme Court, in case his phone really was marred by it. Why didn’t he go? He actually was afraid,” he added.
Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha on Friday, after a Surat court convicted him and sentenced him to two years for criminal defamation for a remark he made ahead of the 2019 general elections about the Modi surname. The verdict came in a case filed by Gujarat lawmaker Purnesh Modi in Surat, who said the opposition leader had insulted all members of the Modi community.
At a press conference in Delhi on Saturday, Gandhi said he has been disqualified from because Prime Minister Narendra Modi “is scared of my next speech on Adani”. He said it would help the Congress as it has given the party new ammunition.