Rahul Gandhi says Modi told him Congress would return once BJP loses power
Told Congress leaders on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi once said the Congress would come back to power after the BJP left. Rahul Gandhi — full…
Rahul Gandhi told Congress leaders on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi once said the Congress would come back to power after the BJP left office, a remark that landed in the middle of a closed-door party meeting in New Delhi. The exchange, recounted at the Congress Working Committee session, fed into Gandhi’s larger pitch to the party: stay confident, keep resisting, and stop doubting the campaign.
At the meeting at Indira Bhawan, Gandhi spoke for about 20 to 25 minutes, according to sources, and framed his message around “opposition” and “resistance.” He urged colleagues to hold firm. Simple enough. But the tone carried a challenge, too, aimed at party members who remain unconvinced about the Congress’s current political line.
From private remark to public message
According to people familiar with the meeting, Gandhi recalled a closed-door interaction with Modi in his role as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He said the prime minister had told him, in effect, that once the BJP was out of power, the Congress would return. Gandhi also cited a Selection Committee meeting involving the prime minister and the home minister for a constitutional post, saying he had questioned Modi about pushing ahead with a candidate he had opposed in his capacity as opposition leader.
That recollection was not just anecdotal. Gandhi used it to tell party leaders that even the BJP’s top leadership appears to expect the Congress to remain the principal challenger. He then turned that point back on his own party, asking why some leaders were not showing the same confidence.
Pressure, suspicion and ‘vote chori’
The CWC meeting came after months of aggressive Congress attacks on alleged irregularities in elections and on the Election Commission. Sources said Gandhi told the gathering that the party’s sustained campaign had helped bring internal differences within the poll body over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls into public view.
He also said the party’s charge of “vote chori” had shifted the debate over the past two years. What once drew scepticism is now being discussed in the media and even in editorials, he told the meeting. Gandhi, sources said, argued that there were two forms of “match-fixing” in elections: one linked to EVMs and another to voter lists.
His message was blunt. The Congress, he said, should remain on the path of resistance — on the streets and in Parliament. And if the party leadership wants momentum to last, the next phase will be about keeping that pressure alive.
Source: thehindu.com
