Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused the BJP of instigating politics of anger and hate for political gains and went emotional to say that one day he too may be killed like his grandmother and father but he is not “bothered”.
In a no-holds-barred attack on the BJP at a series of rallies in Churu and Alwar in poll-bound Rajasthan, Rahul alleged its “politics of anger and hate” was fanning communal tensions and damaging the country’s secular fabric.
The Congress vice- president also invoked the recent Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh in which 62 people were killed to target the saffron party, saying such communal violence causes terrorism. Striking an emotional chord, Rahul said that when he visited Muzaffarnagar sometime back and talked to both Hindus and Muslims, he could see his own story in their words.
“I was seeing my face in their grief. That is why I am against their (BJP’s) politics. What do they do. They will put Muzaffarnagar on fire, Gujarat on fire, UP on fire and Kashmir on fire and then you and we will have to douse that. This damages the country,” he thundered. He said that such politics leads to anger and resentment and precious lives are lost in violence and went personal.
“My grandmother was killed. My father was assassinated and perhaps I may also be killed one day. I am not bothered. I had to tell you what I felt from the heart,” Rahul said and vowed to oppose BJP’s politics.
Rahul also narrated an incident where an MlA from Punjab visiting his office recently told him that had they met 20 years ago he would have killed the Congress vice-president due to anger. Rahul’s grandmother Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards during the militancy days in Punjab in 1984 while his father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by lTTE in 1991.
He said he used to play with Indira’s killers, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, who were in her security, and they killed her one day in anger. “There was anger in me for long and I suppressed it... Then I realised this anger is not natural but spread by others,” he told the gathering in Churu which included a number of Sikhs.
“Anybody can get angry. The anger is deliberately put into people. Politicians do it. Interested party does it. And then the common man, who is hurt has to carry this anger with him. He moves everywhere with this anger. That is why I am against the politics of BJP. Because what they do is that they hurt (people) for political gains,” he added.
Rahul alleged that if there is one thing that BJP does it is spreading anger. “Pitting Hindus against Muslims... It (BJP)does so full-time. But when people die, its leaders are nowhere to be seen,” he said at the rally in Alwar.
“I want to share my story with you,” Rahul told his audience, as he became emotional to say he had seen how people who were so close to his family had targeted them because of anger and hate poured into them.
He said his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi was not happy when he spoke at a recent rally about her strong emotions after she could not cast her vote on food security Bill due to her poor heal. “She called me up later and told me to share his story and not hers if I had to. She said she did not feel good about it,” he said.
Reaching out to youths, Rahul also promised to end the “quotaism in political system”, where a handful run the show, in the same way his father late Rajiv Gandhi brought an end to quota system in telephone allocation.
“We have to change one more thing in the next 10 years and this we have to do with youths. The biggest lacunae in our country is in the political system. Be it of BJP, Congress, BSP and SP. This system is run by 300 to 400 people. I want that in coming years, system should be run by lakhs of youths.