New Delhi, Dec 14 (IANS) Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday called upon people to lend force to Rahul Gandhi’s efforts to save the country and take forward the party’s ideology of truth and protect each voter’s right to elect a government.
Addressing the Congress party’s “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhor” rally at Ramlila Maidan here, he said, “It is our responsibility to support Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Congress ideology to save the country.”
Training his guns on the BJP, Kharge said they are trying to destroy the Constitution and enslave the poor in the name of Hindutva.
“If you want to live as slaves without any self-respect, you will be finished. It was the Congress which helped the country become independent,” he said, adding that many of the BJP leaders were not even born when the grand old party earned Independence.
He said the BJP and the RSS are sowing seeds of venom through their divisive ideology, and the Congress is committed to upholding its own ideology and remove the BJP from power.
He accused BJP leaders of doing drama and being incapable of repeating Rahul Gandhi’s achievement of taking out an 800 km yatra and meeting the poor and caring for them.
Pointing to the Congress party’s good show in the recent Kerala local elections, Kharge shouted slogans of “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhor” and “Vande Mataram” and said the people have to boldly fight the BJP and each worker of the Congress will join the effort to dislodge the rivals who have come to power through “Vote Chori”.
He said the BJP wants to take away poor people’s right to vote and continue to occupy the seat of power through malpractices.
Kharge said the BJP always alleges that Rahul Gandhi goes abroad after the Parliament session, but PM Modi himself goes on foreign trips when the House is in session, without answering any of the questions raised by the LoP and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The Congress president also asked party workers not to be scared by probe agencies allegedly unleashed against them.
Kharge said the BJP and RSS never took part in the freedom struggle, and now they are trying to mislead people over Vande Mataram and “friction” between former PM Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi, in his address, thanked Congress workers for continuing to keep faith in the party and said, “Let me assure you that we will ultimately dislodge the BJP by sticking to the party’s ideology of truth and non-violence.”
“It may take some time, but in this nation, it is the truth that wins ultimately by following the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi,” he said, calling it a fight between two ideologies
“The fight is between their ideology, which is against the truth and power hungry and our ideology of truth, which is in the DNA of every citizen, and non-violence,” he said.
“Congress workers have truth in their DNA, while they (BJP) have ‘vote chori’ in their DNA,” he said.
Waving a copy of the Constitution, he described “vote theft” as an attack on Dr B.R Ambedkar, who framed the Constitution, which gives the right to elect and remove a government to every citizen.
Rahul Gandhi said due to “vote theft”, the government has failed on several fronts, including the destruction of small traders, wrong implementation of GST, demonetization, joblessness and pollution.
“Their failure is due to ‘vote chori’, and they know if there is no ‘vote chori’, voters would send them out of power,” said Gandhi.
--IANS
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