‘I don’t hate Modi… idea of 56-inch chest is history now’: Rahul Gandhi on US visit

“You will be surprised, but I don’t actually hate Mr. Modi…he has got a point of view, fine, I don’t agree with his point of view but I don’t hate him,” he said.

“He (Modi) has a different point of view, I have a different point of view. I have empathy and compassion for what he is doing,” he added.

This is Rahul Gandhi’s first visit to the US as the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha. Gandhi asserted that the Congress’s message is to spread love, not hatred.

On BJP, RSS

Criticising the BJP and RSS, Gandhi suggested they misunderstand India as a collection of separate entities.

“India at heart, is a union of languages, traditions, histories, religion, everything…When you have lunch here, you get first course, second course…we don’t get that, we get a thali, and everything placed in it…it’s a jumble and every food has the same value…so this idea of mixing and merging is in India,” he said.

“The misunderstanding that BJP and RSS have is they think that India is a whole bunch of separate things. So we don’t need to redefine anything, it’s already there,” he added.

“As per the BJP, you cannot have two identities. You cannot be an Indian, and at the same time an American. That is what the fight is about… We are saying that don’t spread hatred, spread love. Don’t be arrogant, be humble. Don’t disrespect people, communities, religions, traditions, languages…”

Taking a jibe at Modi’s remark about speaking to God, Gandhi said, “We knew. When he said that I speak directly to God, we knew that we had actually blown him apart. And that the psychology had gone. So people think that, well, this was the prime minister sort of saying that, look, ‘I’m special, I’m unique, and I talk to God’. But that’s not how we saw it. Internally, we saw it as a psychological collapse, what happened here? How is this thing not working?”

Addressing an audience of Indian Americans in Virginia on Monday, Gandhi accused the RSS of viewing some religions, languages, and communities as inferior to others.

“What the RSS is basically saying is that certain states are inferior to other states. Certain languages are inferior to other languages. Certain religions are inferior to other religions. Certain communities are inferior to other communities. This is what the fight is about,” he said.

Speaking to a Sikh attendee in the crowd, he said, “The fight is about whether a Sikh is going to be allowed to wear his turban in India or a kada in India. Or he, as a Sikh, is going to be able to go to Gurdwara. That’s what the fight is about. And not just for him, for all religions.”

Gandhi continued his criticism of the BJP, claiming that the “fear of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” among people dissipated after the Lok Sabha election results were announced.

“Something has changed after the elections. PM Modi tried to create an environment of fear. Various agencies, media, income tax department tried to spread fear, even among small and medium-sized businesses. But, nothing worked. The fear vanished in one second. The spread of fear took years and consumed a lot of money, but it vanished. You can see it in Parliament right upfront… And I can tell you that the idea of PM Modi, 56-inch chest, direct connection with God. That’s all gone. It’s history now. He, his partners in government and India, the three or four senior ministers in his government realise it,” he said.

On Lok Sabha elections

Gandhi also alleged that the recent Lok Sabha elections were unfairly conducted, with the BJP benefiting due to a “huge financial advantage.”

“I don’t see it as a free election. I see it as a heavily controlled election. I don’t believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 240 seats. I would be surprised,” he said.

“The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr. Modi could carry out his agenda across the country, with different designs for different states,” Gandhi claimed.

He further accused the PM of struggling to come to terms with the fact that the Congress fought the elections with its bank accounts frozen.

“The Congress party fought the elections with their bank accounts frozen and has basically destroyed the idea of Modi. You can see it because when you see the prime minister now in Parliament…he is psychologically trapped, and he basically cannot come to terms, he cannot understand how this has happened,” he said.