Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said his party is sure of a win in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, while it is a “very close” contest in Rajasthan and a likely win in Telangana. He said he is confident about the party’s performance in the upcoming assembly elections and the Congress not registering a win in any state is out of the question. The former Congress chief said the opposition front, INDIA, is adapting well and working together, and the BJP is “in for a surprise in 2024” Lok Sabha elections.
Assembly elections are scheduled to take place in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. “I would say, right now, we are probably winning Telangana, we are certainly winning Madhya Pradesh, we are certainly winning Chhattisgarh. Rajasthan, we are very close, and we think we will be able to win. That is what it is looking like, and by the way, that is also what the BJP internally is saying,” he said at a conclave organised by the Pratidin Media Network of Assam.
Rahul Gandhi said the Congress learnt an important lesson in Karnataka that the BJP wins elections by distracting and not allowing the opposition to construct a narrative. He said this is the saffron camp’s only strategy since it cannot contest on real issues and, for that reason, it uses the idea of ‘One Nation, One Election’ as a distraction. Even MP Ramesh Bidhuri’s communal slurs against fellow MP Kunwar Danish Ali in Lok Sabha is “one of the BJP’s distraction strategies”.
He further said the main issues in India are concentration of wealth, massive inequality in wealth, large-scale unemployment, unfairness towards the lower caste, OBCs and tribal communities, as well as price rise. “Now, the BJP can’t contest those. So ‘let’s have Mr Bidhuri make a statement. Let’s get together and sort of have elections together. Let’s change the name of India’. This is all distraction. We know it, we understand it. And we’re not going to let them do it,” he added.
Gandhi said in Karnataka, the Congress had given a clear vision for the state — “this is the social security programme that we are going to set up for you and then we control the narrative”. “If you look at the Telangana polls, we are controlling the narrative, the BJP is not even in the narrative, it is gone. The BJP has been decimated and it is over in Telangana,” he said, adding the grand old party is also in control of the narrative in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the run-up to the polls.
“If you speak to people in Rajasthan on what is the issue in terms of anti-incumbency, they will tell you they like the government,” he said. “We are adapting in a situation where the BJP controls the media. Don’t think the opposition is not capable of adapting, we are adapting, we are working together, we are 60 percent of India’s population. The BJP is in for a surprise in 2024 (Lok Sabha polls).”
(With PTI inputs)
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