New Delhi: The INDIA alliance held a massive rally at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park on Sunday (March 17), as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra drew to close. The rally was attended and addressed by a host of INDIA party leaders including senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi, NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, DMK leader M.K. Stalin, NC chief Farooq Abdullah, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti.
The 63-day Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was the second such mass outreach programme led by Rahul, this time travelling from the east of the country to the west. Speaking at the event, leaders accused the Narendra Modi-led BJP government of “dictatorship”, “communalism” and “corruption”.
Rahul said that the Modi government had a “monopoly over corruption”, and wouldn’t have been able to win elections without EVMs and the misuse of central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation. “There is a word ‘Shakti’ in Hinduism. We are fighting against a Shakti. The question is, what is that Shakti. The soul of the King is in the EVM. This true. The soul of the King in the EVM and every institution of the country, in ED, CBI and Income Tax department. A senior leader from Maharashtra left Congress and cried in from of my mother and said ‘Sonia ji, I am ashamed that I don’t have the power to fight this Shakti. I do not want to go to jail.’ Thousands of people have been threatened like this…” he said.
RJD’s Tejaswhi highlighted that Rahul’s yatra was to “save India’s Constitution, brotherhood and to defeat hatred”. “Constitutional institutions are being hijacked, elected government are being brought down. When fake propaganda is being spread, Rahul ji completed Bharat Jodo Yatra, to bring back unity and democracy. We have come together to save diversity of the country and not to defeat Modi or Shah. We are here to fight against the ideology, who never contributed in the freedom struggle, never hoisted tricolor on their office. Rahul Gandhi reached out to people to protect constitution, social harmony. We have not joined hands to defeat PM Narendra Modi but to defeat the ideology which is dividing the country,” he said.
NCP supremo Pawar said the BJP was “cheating” the country. “There is a need to bring a change. Those who has cheated the country by giving false promises, need to teach a lesson when we will get the power to vote. So many promises were made, but none of them were implemented, such people need to be removed, we will get that right in the coming months so be prepared,” he said.
Thackeray too spoke in the same vein, saying the BJP was running the country like a dictatorship. “PM Modi criticises all of us as the parties of families. But I want to ask what is Modi’s family. For PM Modi only he and the chair of the prime minister is his family. They want over 400 seats to impose dictatorship in country. But when people unite dictatorship ends. Ab ki baar BJP tadipar,” he said.
Mehbooba said Modi was afraid of the name “Gandhi”. “You (Rahul Gandhi) have Gandhi in your name and the BJP is scared of it. Today, I can see people with different thoughts and ideas here; let me tell you, this is ‘India.’ The election is all set to begin; the public has the most powerful weapon of the Constitution and that is the ‘vote’,” she said.
