Taking potshots at the grand old party, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has launched her son Rahul Gandhi “nearly 20 times” but the “launch has never been successful”.

He said the Wayanad MP will lose to the BJP candidate from Raebareli Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.

Rahul is pitted against the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh in Raebareli. The Gandhi scion is also contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Wayanad in Kerala.

Shah’s sharp reaction came after the Congress declared Rahul’s nomination from Raebareli.

Addressing a public meeting at Hukkeri in Karnataka, he said, “We launched Chandrayaan-3 and it was successful. On the other hand, Sonia Gandhi Ji has been trying to launch ‘Rahulyaan’ for nearly 20 times and has failed every time.”

“Now he has run from Amethi and is contesting from Raebareli. I am going to tell you the result of Raebareli today. BJP’s candidate is set to defeat Rahul baba from Raebareli,” he said.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur also targeted Rahul for not contesting from the Amethi Lok Sabha seat and said it is the fear of defeat that has made the Congress party take this step.

Slamming the Congress, the Union minister said, “Sometime back, Rahul Gandhi used to say ‘daro mat, daro mat’ (do not be scared), now from Amethi to Wayanad and Wayanad to Raebareli…fear of defeat is taking him everywhere.”

Union Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi said the Congress leader is poised to lose the elections from the Raebareli Lok Sabha seat, adding that the Wayanad MP will never forget this defeat in his entire life.

“He (Rahul Gandhi) will be defeated, and he will never forget that defeat in his life,” Pralhad Joshi told reporters in Hubballi (Karnataka).

Meanwhile, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said Congress has nothing to show on the development front in Amethi and hence decided to run away and field the Wayanad MP from a “safe seat.”

“‘Daro mat kehte kehte Rahul Gandhi, Amethi se lado mat’. This has become the new slogan of the Congress party. Today, with this announcement, Congress has confirmed that not a single member of the first family can contest in what they used to call the pocket boroughs of Amethi. In the last 50 years, Rahul Gandhi has not done much, as in the last five years, Smriti Irani, under the leadership of PM Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath, has delivered. First Amethi rejected them, and they went to Wayanad, now Wayanad rejected them and hence they came to Rae Bareli,” Poonawalla told a news agency.

The BJP leader further said people in Raebareli too will reject Rahul in the Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, the Congress on Friday announced Kishori Lal Sharma’s candidature, a party loyalist from Amethi, the seat Rahul Gandhi lost in the 2019 general election to BJP leader Smriti Irani.

Amethi and Raebareli will vote in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 20. Rahul represented Amethi in the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2019.

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