Launching a scathing attack on the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi, Sambit Patra, the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said Pakistan and Congress were highly frustrated and both wanted to dislodge Prime Minister Narendra Modi at “any cost”.
Addressing a press conference, Patra said, “What is it that Congress and Pakistan have in common? The commonality is the frustration of both and their only aim is to somehow remove Modi ji from Indian polity.”
He added that many ministers from Pakistan were managing, and doing a campaign for Rahul Gandhi and that the manner in which Congress and Pakistan had been talking for the past few years was eerily similar.
Referring to Gandhi’s tweet where he accused Modi of betraying the country with his role in the Rafale deal and that the PM and Anil Ambani have conducted a joint “surgical strike” on the Indian defence forces, Patra hit back saying Gandhi was debasing the surgical strikes conducted on Pakistan across the LoC as well as the armed forces of the country.
Patra also read out the tweets posted by several Pakistani leaders, including Prime Minister Imran Khan attacking Modi, and said they had been campaigning for Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
“Some people want Gandhi to become a big leader in India. Who are they? They are Pakistani leaders, and also those who stand for corruption, dynasty, and politics of appeasement,” said Patra.
Referring to BJP president Amit Shah’s jab at the Congress, Patra wondered if Congress had formed a “mahagathbandhan” (grand alliance) with Pakistan against Modi.
He added that the poor, Dalits, backward and the common man still backed Modi and “nobody can remove him”.
He said Gandhi and his party should learn from Modi as he played a video clip of him, when he was Gujarat chief minister, attacking the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for allegedly mocking his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.
He also cited past comments of Congress leaders like Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sandeep Dikshit, Salman Khurshid, and Ghulam Nabi Azad and mentioned Navjot Singh Sidhu’s hug of Pak army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa to attack the Congress.
Patra said Modi’s motto is “all work, no holiday” while that of the UPA government was “no work no headache”.
(With PTI inputs)