5 min readNew DelhiFeb 3, 2026 10:47 PM IST
First published on: Feb 3, 2026 at 05:33 PM IST
For the second consecutive day, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday tried to quote or speak about former Army chief General M M Naravane’s unpublished memoir to launch an offensive against the Narendra Modi government over a military face-off with China in eastern Ladakh in August 2020.
His attempt has resulted in a standoff between the Congress and the Treasury Benches, leading to the suspension of eight Opposition MPs for the remainder of the session.
In the run-up to the Budget Session, the Congress had identified foreign policy and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as issues over which it would corner the government. It had the support of some Opposition parties on the first issue and many on the latter. But in the last two days, Gandhi has sharpened the pitch, which sources in the party said was a deliberate strategy to craft a new narrative by bringing Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the spotlight.
Congress sources said Gandhi, in his Parliament address on Tuesday, wanted to talk about Naravane’s revelations, disclosures surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the India-US trade deal. And he wanted to paint a common thread to argue that Prime Minister Modi was “compromised”. And this is said to be the new line of attack that he was planning against Modi. In the past, the Congress has tried in vain to counter the BJP and the government on the issue of nationalism, but this time the party wants to bring the PM into the crosshairs by labelling him as a liability.
The Ministry of External Affairs last Saturday rejected any suggestion of impropriety after Modi’s name surfaced in a reference contained in newly released US Justice Department files linked to Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
Congress sources said Gandhi wanted to link the trade deal with the indictment of Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and others by US prosecutors in a bribery case and revelations coming out in the Epstein files. According to sources, he also planned to allege that the “trade deal was a sell-out by a compromised Prime Minister to benefit American interests at the cost of Indian farmers and at the cost of losing India’s strategic autonomy by agreeing to stop the purchase of Russian oil”.
“Modi is scared,” Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament. “The trade deal that was on pause for four months was suddenly clinched yesterday evening. Nothing has changed (in the deal). Modi and I know the reason. There is tremendous pressure on Modi. Modi’s image balloon, created by spending thousands of crores, could burst.”
Asked what the pressure was, the LoP said, “There is a case against Adani in the US. That is not targeting Adani, but it is targeting Modi’s financial structure. The second is the Epstein files. Epstein files main abhi aur maal hai .. Woh abhi release nahin hua hai (There is more matter in the Epstein files, that has also not come out). So because of this pressure, the entire country wants to know what is in the Epstein files that were not released completely. These are the two pressure points. The country should understand that the Prime Minister is compromised.”
The issue was not General Naravane’s statement, Gandhi said. “It is a sideshow. And we both know that. The main issue is that our Prime Minister has been made to compromise. What did and how it was done, the people of the country have to think. But for the first time in history, the Leader of the Opposition was not allowed to speak in the President’s Address.”
About the trade deal, Gandhi said Modi had sold out farmers. “And it was sold because he was compromised. He not just sold you, he sold the country. That is what I was not allowed to speak … Modi is scared because the people who made his image are now trying to burst it.”
Another pivot
Gandhi had been targeting the BJP government over “vote theft” charges for some months. But the issue, Congress leaders said, could not find traction on the ground. And before that, Gandhi had tried to shape a social justice plank for the Congress, talking repeatedly about the need for breaching the 50% ceiling on reservation and holding a caste census. Now there is a new turn.
While the indication was that the party would not back down, some leaders felt that disrupting the Lok Sabha and derailing the discussion on the President’s Address may not go down well with other Opposition parties. But that is a gamble the Congress leadership appears to have taken.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi speaks in Lok Sabha, in New Delhi, on Tuesday. (Photo: Screenshot from video shared by Rahul Gandhi on X) 
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