New Delhi: Making a bold assertion about the potential outcome of the Lok Sabha general elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday suggested that if his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, had contested the Varanasi seat, she would have defeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi by a significant margin.
Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who iinitially trailed from Varanasi against Congress’s Ajay Rai, won the seat by a significantly reduced margin of 1.6 lakh.
“Varanasi mein jaan bacha ke nikle hain pradhan mantri,” Rahul Gandhi said at ‘Aabhar Sabha’ in Rae Bareli. “Had my sister listened to me, and contested the Varanasi seat, the PM would have been defeated by 2 to 3 lakh votes.”
Rahul Gandhi also extended gratitude to the Samajwadi Party for their cooperation during the campaign. “I want to tell the Samajwadi Party that every single worker of your party cooperated with the Congress in the fight,” he said, highlighting the unity among the allies, Hindustan Times reported.
“Earlier alliances used to happen, but there were always complaints of non-cooperation. But this time in the alliance, all the allies everywhere across the country fought in cooperation, together.”
Gandhi attributed this unity to a growing realisation of the BJP’s alleged threats to democratic values.
“It happened because the country realised that Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were trying to play with the Constitution,” he said. “The first time we saw India’s PM openly doing politics of hate and violence. This was against India’s culture and religion.” Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also lauded the party workers for fighting in “adverse circumstances” and filling up the shoes of Kishori Lal Sharma who contested and won from Amethi.
“You fought in adverse circumstances. For the first time, Kishori Lal Sharma was not here to oversee the election management. He was fighting his election in Amethi,” she said.
