Amit Shah takes ‘Chandrayaan’ dig at Rahul Gandhi, Sonia over Raebareli candidature

Soon after former Congress president Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination from the Raebareli seat in the Lok Sabha elections, BJP launched multiple attacks at the Gandhi family and the grand old party. Union Home Minister Amit Shah further took a dig at Rahul Gandhi, saying that Sonia Gandhi tried to launch ‘Rahulyaan’ nearly 20 times but he will lose the elections from the Raebareli seat.

Rahul Gandhi is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from two seats - Wayanad and Raebareli. Meanwhile, BJP fielded party leader Dinesh Pratap Singh from the Raebareli seat.

While addressing an election rally in Belgavi's Hukkeri town, Amit Shah expressed confidence that Singh will defeat Gandhi from the seat by a huge margin.

The home minister said, “We launched Chandrayaan-3 and it was successful. On the other hand, Sonia Gandhiji has tried to launch Rahulyaan nearly 20 times and has failed every time. Now he has run from Amethi and is contesting from Raebareli. I want to tell you (Rahul Gandhi) the result from here, 'Rahul Baba' will lose to the BJP candidate, Dinesh Pratap Singh with a huge margin in Raebareli.”

Read more: Can't stop a ‘Rahul Gandhi’ or ‘Lalu Yadav’ from contesting polls: Supreme Court

Amit Shah further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't take a single leave over the last 23 years, while Rahul Gandhi goes on frequent vacations.

"On one side, there's the Congress party that has done scams worth ₹12 lakh crore. On the other, we have PM Modi, who has served the nation as a CM and a PM for the last 23 years, without a single allegation to his name. On one hand, we have Rahul baba, who takes a foreign vacation every three months. On the other hand, we have PM Modi, who has not taken one leave since the last 23 years and celebrates festivals with our brave soldiers," he said.

There were speculations of Rahul Gandhi returning to contest the elections from the Amethi seat once again, but Congress declared Kishori Lal Sharma as its candidate from the constituency.

Read more: Congress leader hails Rahul as next ‘Mahatma’, says Gandhiji was ‘cunning’

Union Minister Smriti Irani slammed the grand old party for the decision, saying that Congress already would not have fielded a "proxy candidate" (Kishori Lal Sharma) if they were hopeful about the outcome of the polls, already conceding defeat before a single vote was cast.