RaGa questions Modi credibility

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Gujarat polls have put a big question mark over the credibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that of the BJP, which is today "at an all-time low."

"Frankly, Modi ji has a credibility problem and he will find it very difficult because his party repeats whatever he says, but the nation is not listening. Gujarat polls demonstrated this and it would become clearer in the time to come," Rahul said, in his first interaction after the Congress lost the Assembly elections in both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

He further noted that the Gujarat results have given a big jolt to the BJP as it could just scrape through and did not get the magic "150 plus." At the same time, he was frank that the Congress could have won but for some slip ups.

"Hamare liye kaafi achchha result hai. Theek hai haar, gaye, jeet sakte the. Vahan thodi kami ho gayi. (It is a very good result for us. We lost but we could have won. There was some slip up)," Rahul said.

Though he did not elaborate, party sources said, in an internal assessment, Gandhi had admitted the mistake in rejecting an electoral alliance with other parties.

The Congress lost 15 seats with a margin of less than 3,000 votes; had it tied up with the NCP and the BSP, these votes might have landed in its kitty. The BJP bagged all these seats to race up to 99 in a House of 182.

Rahul said he had learnt after visiting Gujarat that the people actually do not subscribe to the so-called "Modi model" which is very good propaganda, a very good PR (public relation) stunt, very good marketing, but the model is "khokhla" (hollow) from inside.

Rahul laughed at Modi and BJP President Amit Shah for touting the victory as triumph of "development" even though they had failed to address the issue when he had raised questions in the poll campaign. Reacting sharply, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said: "It is the credibility of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi which is at an alltime low, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi's credibility is at an all-time high, not just in India, but globally."

Endorsing the minister, his colleague Prakash Javadekar said in a sarcastic jibe: "After the series of electoral defeats since 2014, the Congress has no choice but to consider its losses as victory."

"The public is giving jolt after jolt to the Congress in successive elections, and Rahul Gandhi ji says that Narendra Modi ji's credibility is going down," Javadekar laughed.

Asked about PM Modi's claim on Monday night that the Gujarat result is defeat of the caste card played by the Congress and a stamp on the GST, Rahul said it was then strange that he (Modi) neither talked of "Vikas" (development), "Notebandi" (demonetisation) nor GST during the poll campaign

"Modi ji has talked non-stop on corruption all these years, but why not a word on the Rafale aircraft scam and Jay Shah’s meteoric rise? The nation wants to know why there is this silence on Amit Shah's son turning Rs 50,000 into Rs 80 crore in three months and on the Rafale deal with France that he personally handled. This is the credibility issue."

Rahul was buoyed by the performance of his party in the Gujarat elections, pointing out that he was told 3-4 months ago when he went to the state that the Congress stands nowhere close to the BJP. "The massive jolt to the BJP is proof of the solid work done by our Gujarat team."