Raking up domestic politics before his US audience, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi attacked the Narendra Modi Government and heaped praise on China.
The Congress leader arrived in the United States for a four day visit beginning yesterday. This is his first trip since the 2024 Indian elections. He is visiting Dallas, Texas and Washington.
Shockingly right from the first event, Rahul used the foreign platform to laud China and demean India. Rahul gushed over China’s apparent manufacturing industry and shamed India in comparison. He even went on to claim that China has great employment opportunities unlike India where unemployment is rife. This is quite uncalled for, for an Indian lawmaker to go abroad to run down his own country and lionize China, a nation that has had extremely tense relations with India over the years. But this hardly comes as a surprise, as Gandhi has even hosted Chinese offiials personally and his Congress party has even signed a secret MoU with China.
Speaking at the university of Dallas, Gandhi also re-emphasised his apparent desire to safeguard the constitution, back diverse religions and promoting regional identity of states. Topics which should set alarm bells ringing back in India.
Gandhi’s comments were in parallel to the extremely divisive election campaign his party had run on this year. Gandhi seems to be using the visit to again attack his political opponents back home. He has been criticized heavily for the same before, yet it seems he has no intent to listen to his critics or the outrage from the public.
Gandhi mentioned the Abhay mudra as a symbol to instil fearlessness amongst the voters, comments he had used in the Parliament with pictures of religious personalities to prove his political points a move that was heavily condemned but Rahul seems in no mood to back down.
He also reasserted his desire for a caste census, even mentioning that India is union of states like USA, thereby stressing on his agenda to create faultlines across the country. Gandhi did not shy away from attacking the RSS as well, claiming that the sanghs view of India is One idea while he believes that in his mind, India is a multiplicity of Ideas.
Gandhi also credited the Bharat Jodo Yatra for fundamentally changing the way he viewed politics while also helping him reorganize his communication strategies. Rahul Gandhi was joined on the side by the extremely controversial Sam Pitroda. Sam pitroda had been removed from the party just before the elections, but it seems that was just an electoral gimmick as he was at the head of the entire event.
On his trip Gandhi will interact with the members of the Indian diaspora in Dallas, Texas and Washington DC. He further plans to meet lawmakers and senior officials of the US government during his visit to Washington DC on Monday. It is strange, why an Indian lawmaker needs to have such equations with so many elected personalities of a foreign nation.
Gandhi’s trip comes just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much awaited trip to the USA. The PM’s first since his re-election. It will be interesting to see how both the visits contrast, and their respective effect on Indian politics in the coming future.