Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, the foot march undertaken by Congress scion Rahul Gandhi right after the Congress party lost three out of four states in the assembly elections came to an end on 17th of March. The Congress leader’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was the continuation of the Congress party’s perpetual agenda of divisive politics and spreading hatred. Much like the Bharat Jodo Yatra, its sequel had no shortage of attempts to deepen the faultlines of Indian society, even by using deliberate lies and misinformation.
The series of blunders began with the promotional video of Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra as Congress used the audio clips of BJP’s firebrand leader Smriti Irani reciting former PM Atal Bihari’s poem “Hum jiyenge toh Bharat ke liye, marenge toh Bharat ke liye” in its promo. The embarrassment was made worse since Smriti Irani is the one who defeated Rahul Gandhi in his ‘home bastion’ Amethi. Smriti Irani not only defeated Rahul Gandhi but also snatched away the Gandhi stronghold. Rahul Gandhii’s fear of losing against Irani was such that the Congress’s prime minister aspirant is reported to be unwilling to contest from Amethi, after running away to Wayanad in 2019.
Lying about Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony, dismissing it as ‘BJP’s event, to mocking Aishwarya Rai: The fall and the fall of Rahul Gandhi
Years after submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court denying the existence of Lord Ram, the Congress party as the political scenario changed claimed to be devotees of Lord Ram. The party even accused the BJP of ‘using’ Lord Ram for its political gains. However, beyond the pretence, the actions of Congress and its leaders have time and again proven that the party has no respect or reverence for Bhagwan Ram. Despite the invitation, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge did not attend the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony held on the 22nd of January this year.
While the nation rejoiced in the ultimate victory in the 500 years of resistance and reclamation, on the 23rd of January, Rahul Gandhi demonstrating his lack of understanding of the sentiments of Hindus dismissed that there is any such phenomenon as Ram leher (wave). “There is no such thing that there is a wave (leher). I have already said that this was a political program of the BJP,” Rahul Gandhi said.
The frustration over the Ram Mandir Pran Pratistha perhaps made Gandhi resort to peddling lies about the consecration ceremony and playing the communist-style ‘ameer vs gareeb’ game merely to attack PM Modi. While addressing the crowd during Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Chhattisgarh’s Korba, Rahul Gandhi said, “During Ram Temple’s inauguration, I saw Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Adani, Ambani, and all businessmen attending the event but I didn’t notice any poor, farmer, labourer, unemployed, or ‘chai wala’ among them.”
Contrary to Gandhi’s claim, the event was attended by people from all walks of life. In addition to dignitaries and celebrities, the family members of several karsevaks, sadhus, labourers, sanitisation workers etc were also invited. Rahul Gandhi’s disdain for slogans like Jai Shri Ram was seen when he charged towards a crowd in Assam during the yatra as they raised Jai Shri Ram and pro-BJP slogans. Apparently, the owner-operator of ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukaan’ harbours ‘nafrat’ for the Ram Bhakts saying, Jai Shri Ram.
During the course of his controversial Yatra, Rahul Gandhi exposed his disturbing “objectification” of women as he repeatedly targeted film star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan saying “Aishwarya Rai nachti hui dikhegi” and “Aishwarya ko nachte hue dikhana” etc. It is worth noting that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was not even present in the Ram Mandir consecration event. The audacity of the Gandhi scion to target and objectify Aishwarya Rai is alarming. Aishwarya Rai was crowned Miss World in 1994 when Rahul Gandhi was nothing more than former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s son. It is shameful that Rahul Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who once led a woman-centric “Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon” campaign, maintained a deafening silence on her brother’s opprobrious remarks on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
During the Bharat ‘Jodo’ Nyay Yatra, Rahul Gandhi worked on the sole agenda of Bharat ‘Todo’ instead. Conspicuously, Rahul Gandhi’s obsession with people’s caste and his attempts to further the divide in society and gain some votes will be remembered as the standout in the second season of the Yatra. Be it Rahul Gandhi lying that President Droupadi Murmu was not invited to the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony because she is an “Adivasi” to calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “Fake OBC” Rahul Gandhi has left no stone unturned to re-mainstream casteism in electoral politics.
While Rahul Gandhi had claimed that President Murmu was not invited to the ceremony in Ayodhya, a delegation of Ram Mandir construction chairperson, VHP and RSS leaders had formally invited her. Although, Madam President said that she would visit the temple at a later date, she penned a heart-warming letter to PM Modi which she to Rahul Gandhi’s disappointment had concluded with the slogan “Siyavar Ramchandra Ki Jai!”
Even personal attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi have always boomeranged on opposition parties, Rahul Gandhi during the Yatra attacked PM Modi over his caste calling him ‘Fake OBC’. He claimed that PM Modi lied about his OBC caste saying that he is not an OBC by birth and later included his caste in the OBC list. However, as we factchecked Rahul Gandhi’s claim, it turned out that the Gandhi scion was telling a lie since it was his own party’s government in Gujarat and Centre when Modi’s Modh Ghanchi caste was notified in the OBC list in 1994, many years before Modi became Gujarat’s Chief Minister.
“Kaun Jaat Ho?”: When Rahul Gandhi channelised the Ravish Kumar in him to play caste-based divisive politics
In another instance of inciting people on caste lines, Rahul Gandhi during the UP leg of the Yatra claimed that the Central government is hostile to OBCs and Dalits. He also got a journalist almost lynched. “The Ram Mandir is only visited by the likes of PM Modi, Ambani, and Adani. You will see all our billionaires there but not a single person from a backward class or the Dalit community,” Gandhi said.
During the speech, Rahul Gandhi addressed a journalist in public and asked for his name. “Are you from the media? What is your name? What is the name of the owner of your organisation?” Rahul Gandhi asked the journalist. “Is he an OBC? Is your owner a Dalit? No, he is not.” Rahul Gandhi continued as the crowd around the journalist got hostile. He then stopped the Congress workers saying, “No. Don’t beat him up”. The leitmotif of Rahul Gandhi’s OBC, Dalit, and Adivasi rant is that one is honest, worthy of respect and importance only if they belong to these three caste groups as if being a so-called “upper caste” is a crime in this country.
Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party’s scorn for Uttar Pradesh and its people was seen in February this year when he referred to the state’s young as ‘nashedi’. “I went to Varanasi and I saw people lying on roads drunk. The youths of Uttar Pradesh are on a trip after consuming liquor by night. On the other hand, there is the Ram Mandir which is only visited by the likes of PM Modi, Ambani and Adani. You will see all our billionaires there but not a single person from a backward class or the Dalit community,” Rahul said during the Yatra in Amethi.
Rahul Gandhi’s resentment towards Uttar Pradesh is understandable given that the party has been reduced to two seats in the state. In recent elections, the voters have overwhelmingly rejected the Congress party.
Rahul Gandhi, on a rare occasion of targeting the Modi government on development and infrastructure issues unlike the usual caste jibes claimed that the world-famous pineapples of Meghalaya are not reaching the global markets due to “lack of infrastructure”. However, Gandhi ignored the fact that India has been exporting pineapples from Meghalaya to various places in the Gulf. The state government in August 2023 stated that the pineapples from the state have been gaining more and more popularity within and outside the country. Malls across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Kuwait have been selling these pineapples.
Rahul Gandhi attacks Adani, his party’s CM in Telangana signs MoUs with Adani conglomerate
Rahul Gandhi’s fixation with business behemoths Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani has peaked in recent years. The Gandhi scion has been at the forefront of slandering the businessman and accuses PM Modi of crony capitalism, by favouring Adani and his companies. The Congress party even coined terms like ‘Modani’ in their desperation to implicate Adani as a partner in crime with PM Modi. This desperation, however, brought nothing but embarrassment to Rahul Gandhi and his party during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra gimmick.
The Congress party’s prince in a bid to establish a narrative that somehow Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani are controlling the institutions in the country including the Media. Last month, while addressing a crowd in Varanasi during the Yatra, Rahul Gandhi said, “‘Look here, this media people from ANI and all other TV, look at them. PTI, ANI, India Today, Network 10, Network 12, Network 14, tell who owns them? These belong to Adani ji, and Ambani ji. They are never going to show about farmers, labourers, poor. They can’t do it, because their owners have ordered them that they can’t show about the poor of India. They can show only Narendra Modi 24 hours, not the poor.’ This came even though the media undertook extensive coverage of the farmers’ protest. Probably, Rahul Gandhi believes in the childish argument “If you’re not on my side, you’re my enemy.”
Interestingly, while not a day goes by without Rahul Gandhi attacking Adani and PM Modi over their alleged ‘crony capitalism’, his own party’s leader and Chief Minister of Telangana Revanth Reddy on 17th January signed four Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 12,400 crore with the Adani group at the sideline of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024 in Davos, Switzerland. Reddy’s move left even the loudmouth Supriya Srinate with no answer when the media questioned CM Reddy’s move, not being in line with the party’s anti-Adani stand.
Adivasis pay GST, Adani-Ambani don’t: Rahul Gandhi ceases to apply brain while attacking the business tycoons
Adding another incidence of embarrassment to the never-ending list, Rahul Gandhi while attacking Adani-Ambani and the Modi government over GST exposed his ignorance about GST and how it works. Gandhi harangued against the GST at a public meeting in Jharkhand in February during the yatra, stating that only the poor pay it, while the rich and privileged never do. He also demonised India’s industrial class, portraying them as dishonest and thieves. The Gandhi scion assailed Adani and Ambanis, claiming that they do not pay GST whereas industrious adivasis and tribals who haul 200 kgs of coal for a life do. A detailed OpIndia report on Rahul Gandhi’s comments on GST, and how GST works can be read here.
Embarrassment chases the Congress party’s ultracrepidarian. During his Yatra in Madhya Pradesh, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi equated the Minimum Support Price (MSP) declared on crops with the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) set on commodities like FMCG products.
In a desperate attempt to gain mileage from the farmers’ protest, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that the Modi government is unwilling to legalise MSP as ‘recommended’ by the Swaminathan Committee. However, contrary to Rahul Gandhi’s lies, the Swaminathan Committee report did not advocate for legalising MSP rather recommended that the MSP be at least 50% higher than the weighted average cost of production. This was referred to as the C2+50% formula, which included the capital input cost and land rent to provide farmers with 50% of the returns.
Ironically, although seeing the defeat in the coming Lok Sabha elections nearly inevitable, Rahul Gandhi promised to bring MSP law, it was his own party’s government led by then PM Manmohan Singh that rejected the Swaminathan Commission’s C2+50 per cent formula recommendation citing “counter-productivity”.
In a classic case of “The less you know, the more you think you know”, Rahul Gandhi shared his ‘wisdom’ on the challenges posed by Generative AI while interacting with some IT professionals during the yatra last month. Despite lack of sufficient knowledge on the subject, Rahul Gandhi tried hard to appear like an expert on AI. However, ended up getting trolled on social media for his ‘network’ gobbledegook and an unrelated ‘story’ of Saddam Hussain ‘obliterating’ the United States in Iraq. To no surprise he even brought caste into the context, of course, without making any sense.
Rahul Gandhi walked on even as I.N.D.I. Alliance continued to fall apart
It makes one wonder what exactly was the purpose of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. Was it to understand the issues of the people of Bharat? Was it to bring people together? Was it to increase the voter base? Or was it just a burlesque drama of the lifetime PM aspirant and Congress prince going out and connecting with the ‘Praja’. While Rahul Gandhi may have managed to make a few laughs, his foot march did not essentially yield any significant results in terms of political gains.
While Rahul Gandhi continued his foot march, which he paused for a paid event in the United Kingdom, the I.N.D.I. Alliance has only been shrinking while the NDA despite its already strong standing is expanding rapidly. The internal rift among the opposition parties has been out in the open. The same was seen during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in January this year when West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee refused to attend the Yatra saying she was not informed. The TMC government even denied permission to undertake the Yatra in Siliguri. In another display of opposition unity, the Congress party did not care to invite its ally and Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav to the yatra during its UP leg.
Interestingly, although the Congress party likes to play the ‘big brother’ in the I.N.D.I. Alliance, its own prince does not even believe in treating his own party workers with respect and dignity. A disturbing example of this was seen during the BJ Nyay Yatra in Jharkhand when Rahul Gandhi offered biscuits, rejected by a dog, to a party worker.
It was another such incident back 2016 that made Himanta Biswa Sarma quit the Congress party and join the BJP. In Himanta, Congress lost a bright, firebrand leader who could have taken the party to new heights in Assam. However, he quit Congress, joined BJP ensuring back to back victories for the party in the state. Now, Himanta is only second to Smriti Irani in aggressively taking on Rahul Gandhi.
Interestingly, despite the tall claims made in the initial days, I.N.D.I. Alliance has out and out been a flop show. While the BJP is aiming for a goal of winning 370 seats on its own and “Abki Baar 400 Paar” for NDA, the opposition bloc is shrinking at an alarming rate.
Former I.N.D.I. Alliance partners Rashtriya Lok Dal, and Janata Dal United have drifted away from Congress and joined hands with the BJP-led NDA. Even former Congress ally Janata Dal Secular has allied with the BJP. Moreover, the Communist Party of India (CPI) has also announced to go solo in Assam. Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress will also be going solo in West Bengal.
Forget ‘Bharat Jodo’ Rahul Gandhi failed to stop the disintegration of his own alliance.
While Rahul Gandhi dreams of becoming prime minister of a Hindu-majority Bharat, his actions suggest that the leader despises Hindu Dharma. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022, Rahul Gandhi met Rijil Mukkutty the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) leader, who slaughtered a cow in broad daylight in 2017 to mock Hindu sentiments. Moreover, during the Yatra he was also seen mollycoddling with anti-Hindu elements like pastor Geroge Poonaiah who said Jesus is the ‘real God’, unlike ‘Sakthi & other Hindu gods. He (Jesus Christ) is a real God, revealed as a human person. Not like Sakthi and all,” Poonaiah had said as the self-proclaimed Janeudhari Dattatreya gotri Brahmin Rahul Gandhi looked on.
In the phase one, a pastor made disparaging remarks about Maa Shakti and Rahul Gandhi raised no objection, this time on the last day of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Rahul Gandhi himself exposed his Hindu hate as he resorted to distorting Hinduism, since Hindu-hate is the Sine Qua Non of the Congress party’s proclivities. “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 front 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,” Rahul Gandhi said in a shocking distortion of the meaning and value of the concept of Shakti.
Only a Mahishasur could think of fighting the Shakti, the powerful feminine deity in Hindu Dharma. In conclusion, Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was a mere continuation of the furtherance of caste-based divisive politics, causing chaos by lying/misleading, inviting embarrassment and fuelling hatred against Hindus in addition to the usual Adani-Ambani rant while the I.N.D.I. Alliance broke apart. Rahul Gandhi will be remembered in history as a political leader who traversed the length and breadth of the country right before the elections and yet failed to grasp the essence of Bharat and what the people of this country truly want.
