Rae Bareli will ght for democracy, show the way to country: Priyanka
Campaigning for her brother Rahul Gandhi, she invokes party’s old ties with the people of the constituency and defends Congress against PM’s charge of going soft on Adani and Ambani
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday said her party’s decadesold relationship with the people of Rae Bareli has entered a new phase and they will show the way to the country.
Addressing a public gathering at Bhawanigarh locality in Rae Bareli in support of her brother and Congress candidate Rahul Gandhi, she invoked Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru’s association with the farmers’ movement in the region. “Today, Rae Bareli is once again ready to ght for the salvation of democracy and the Constitution. Rae Bareli has become Rahulmai (Rahul-ed),” she said.
Ms. Vadra, who is likely to stay and lead the party’s campaign in the constituency and in Amethi, defended her brother against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment in Telangana that top Congress leaders were not targeting industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani now like they used to.
‘Nexus with capitalists’
“Today, Narendra Modiji said Rahul Gandhi is not taking Adani’s name. The fact is that Rahul Gandhi talks about Adani every day, he puts the truth about Adani in front of you (people) every day and exposes it,” said the Congress leader, accusing the PM instead of a nexus with big capitalists. “Narendra Modi waived o loans worth ₹16 lakh crore of his friends but did not waive o a single rupee of the farmers, the poor, women and the unorganised sector,” she alleged.
Ms. Vadra said BJP leaders are not even talking about ination and unemployment. “They will come here and in their speeches talk about religion, caste, temples and mosques but will not talk about your real problems,” she said.
She asserted that the people of Rae Bareli understand leaders well. “When they did not like some policy of Indiraji [Indira Gandhi], they defeated her too. Indira did not get angry but did introspection. You elected her again.”
Formerly held by Ms. Vadra’s mother Sonia Gandhi, Rae Bareli was the only seat won by the Congress from Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. Ms. Gandhi defeated her rival candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh of the BJP by roughly 1,67,000 votes. The BJP has repeated Mr. Singh, now a Minister in U.P., from the seat for the May 20 poll.