Rahul Gandhi in London: ‘BJP wants India to be silent …Congress has interesting ideas on Opposition unity, don’t want to spoil surprise’

“The media, the institutional frameworks, judiciary, Parliament …These are all under attack and we were finding it very difficult to put the voice, our own voice and also the voice of the people, through the normal channels because the media was not picking up issues like unemployment, price rise, the concentration of wealth, and violence against women,” he said.

Asked about the controversy over the BBC documentary and his response to the narrative that the documentary was reflective of the colonial hangover, he said, “It is sort of similar to Mr Adani. It is also a colonial hangover. Every place where there is opposition there is an excuse.”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in London on Sunday. (PTI)

“There is suppression of voice across the country …example is the BBC, but the BBC is just one element of it. The BBC has found out about it now but it has been going on in India for the last nine years …non-stop. Everybody knows that … journalists are intimidated, they are attacked, they are threatened and the journalists who toe the line of the government are rewarded. So it is part of a pattern. If the BBC stops writing against the government everything will go back to normal. All the cases will disappear (and) everything will go back to normal. This is the new idea of India,” he said.

“There is suppression of voice across the country. The BJP wants India to to be silenced because it wants to handover country’s wealth to 4-5 people.”

: Shri @RahulGandhi in interaction with Indian Journalists Association in London. https://t.co/HFhNNqvshE pic.twitter.com/55clgE3ekL

— Congress (@INCIndia) March 5, 2023

Gandhi said the BJP wants India to be silent. “They want it to be quiet. They want the Dalits, the lower castes, the Adivasis, the media …they want silence and they want silence because they want to be able to take what is India’s and give it to their close friends. So that’s basically the idea …distract the population and then hand over India’s wealth to two-three-four five people.”

Gandhi said silencing the media was being done at a scale never done before. “There were periods when there were aberrations. But this is a full-scale attack on the institutional structure … this has never been seen in modern India before,” he said.

Arguing that there was a lot of anger against the BJP and that the 2024 elections were going to be fought on issues such as unemployment, the concentration of wealth, and the destruction of small and medium businesses, he said, “I think what is also central to it is how the Opposition is able to fight together. You have individual states that work differently but I think if we are able to coalesce the Opposition with a different idea than that of the BJP we will do very well in the election.”

“I think there is a lot of coordination that goes on with the Opposition parties. I think there are conversations going on between the Opposition parties. I am aware of many of them. I think the basic idea that the RSS and the BJP need to be fought and need to be defeated is deeply entrenched in the minds of the Opposition. There is no question of that. There are tactical issues that require discussion. In some states, they are very simple … other states they are slightly more complicated but the Opposition is very much capable of having this discussion and resolving it.”

The Opposition, he said, had placed a vision on the table. “And that vision is inclusive, it is a vision of bringing people together. And we are in conversation with the Opposition … the Opposition is talking to each other and I am confident that we will get something very interesting going forward. I am very optimistic.”

Asked how he planned to build on the Yatra and what was his party’s future course of action, Gandhi said, “We have got some ideas. Of course Mr (Mallikarjun) Kharge is the president, so we are in discussion internally in the party and we have got some very interesting ideas of how we can move forward and also bring the Opposition together. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

Asked about the BJP’s charge that he was maligning India on foreign soil, he said there was nothing in his Cambridge lecture that defamed India. “Last I recall the Prime Minister going abroad and announcing that there has been nothing done in 70 years of Independence. I remember him saying that there is a lost decade of 10 years, there is unlimited corruption in India. I remember him saying these abroad, I have never defamed my country, I will never do it … the fact of the matter is the person who defames India when he goes abroad is the prime minister of India … you haven’t heard his speech where he said nothing happened in 70 years insulting every single Indian, insulting every single Indian’s parents, grandparents …Independence is washed away. If that is that’s not an insult, then what is an insult?”

When asked for his view on bulldozer politics, Gandhi said, “As far as intimidation of any type is concerned, I don’t like … I believe in non-violence and I don’t like intimidation.”