Shah slams Rahul Gandhi, says Modi will become PM again with full majority

Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said Narendra Modi will become the Prime Minister for the third consecutive term with an absolute majority in the 2024 national polls while hitting out at Rahul Gandhi saying it is high time for him to change or else Congress would be wiped out of the entire country.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win over 300 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats in the next general elections. “I would like to tell the Congress that in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP will win 12 of the 14 [Lok Sabha] seats in Assam,” he said at a public meeting in Assam’s Dibrugarh.

The BJP returned to power in 2019 with a bigger majority of 303 seats while the Congress managed to get just 54. In 2014, the BJP became the first party in three decades to cross the halfway mark of 272 seats on its own.

Shah said Gandhi would not change. “He goes abroad and denigrates the country. Is this the behaviour expected of any patriotic citizen?” Shah asked. “Rahul, it is high time for you to change. Or else Congress would be wiped out of the entire country as it happened in the northeast.”

Gandhi has been under fire from the BJP since his remarks in the United Kingdom on Indian democracy and Parliament last month. The government demanded an apology from Gandhi over his remarks at an interaction at Cambridge University. Gandhi said Indian democracy was under attack and several politicians, including himself, were under surveillance.

The storm over the remarks disrupted the Budget Session of Parliament even as the Congress maintained the BJP’s protests against his remarks were part of an attempt to divert attention from American securities research firm Hindenburg Research’s report that accused Gautam Adani-led Adani Group of fraud and stock manipulation.

Shah said Modi has secured the country from external threats and brought peace to the northeast. “...but Congress wants to dig his grave. ...the more you abuse Modi, the BJP’s lotus will bloom with more glow,” he said, referring to the BJP’s election symbol.

Shah, who virtually laid the foundation stone of BJP’s zonal office for Upper Assam, highlighted the achievements of the state’s government and the schemes and policies introduced since Himanta Biswa Sarma became the chief minister in May 2021. “I thank Assam’s people for starting the BJP’s victory march in the northeast in 2016. Now the party and allies of the National Democratic Alliance are in power in all states of the region. Congress, the biggest party in the northeast till a few years back, has been completely wiped out.”

He referred to the BJP’s return to power for the second consecutive time in Tripura and as part of coalition governments in Nagaland and Meghalaya in March. Shah said Rahul Gandhi led the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir but Congress got wiped out in the three northeastern states.

Shah was on a two-day trip to the northeast where he visited Kibithoo in Arunachal Pradesh on Monday and launched the Vibrant Village Programme meant for the development of border villages.

Kibithoo is the first village near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) overlooking Chinese posts in Arunachal Pradesh.

Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh came days after China renamed 11 places including mountain peaks, rivers, and residential areas in the state, which it claims as South Tibet, further straining the bilateral ties between the two countries. India and China have been locked in a standoff along the LAC in Ladakh since May 2020.