Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has stoked a fresh controversy by alleging on foreign soil that ‘Indian democracy is under threat’ and several other leaders including him are under surveillance. He was delivering a lecture in the UK as a Visiting Fellow of the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and the topic was ‘Learning to listen in the 21st century’. During this, Rahul Gandhi said, “In my opinion, Narendra Modi is destroying the architecture of India. If he is dividing our country into pieces, as I think he is doing, then I should give him two or Three good policies don’t care. He is imposing an idea on India, which India cannot assimilate, because India is a union of states. He said it is a negotiation and if you impose an idea on a union (country) If you try to impose, it will react.”
Rahul alleged that Israeli Pegasus spyware was installed in the phones of a large number of leaders including him. While he said that I myself had installed Pegasus in my phone. Many of our politicians have Pegasus in their phones. It is a kind of pressure that we feel. BJP has immediately reacted to this statement of Rahul Gandhi. Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said it was a “shameless attempt” to defame India on foreign soil in the name of targeting Narendra Modi. He said, ‘What was the compulsion behind him (Rahul Gandhi) not submitting his cellphone to check whether Pegasus is spyware or not? He is already out on bail in a corruption case (National Herald). Was this the reason he needed to hide his phone? Why didn’t he and other leaders hand over their phones for checking?”
On the other hand, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma rebutted point by point the issues raised by Rahul Gandhi in Cambridge. In a long Twitter thread, Sarma wrote, “First foreign agents target us! Then our own on a foreign land target us! Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Cambridge is nothing but a guise of targeting PM Narendra Modi.” There was a brazen attempt to defame our country on foreign soil. By going there” Rahul says Indian democracy is in danger as he cannot express himself freely. Whereas the fact is that he traveled 4000 kms across the country without any incident under the security provided by the Modi government. Do we need to remind them how vandalism used to happen when BJP leaders used to take yatras and Congress was in power?
“Rahul is saying that Pegasus was found in his phone and an “officer” warned him about it. While the fact is that when the Supreme Court asked for it, he (Rahul) submitted his refused to submit the phone. After extensive investigation, the Supreme Court concluded that there was no evidence of Pegasus. He says that India’s minorities are insecure and are treated like second-class citizens. The facts Communal violence in India is at its lowest since May 2014 and prosperity of minority households is at an all-time high. Several minority leaders have reiterated their faith in the Modi government. is a union of states made. While the fact is that India and its Mahajanapadas existed as a civilizational unit thousands of years ago. Even Europe became a political unit of it, can we still model after them have been done?
Sarma said that “Rahul says that manufacturing is not conducive to democracy. The fact is that manufacturing did not grow when Indira Gandhi suspended democracy, but it did when the Modi government launched the PLI scheme.” Himanta asked whether the Congress’s agenda for 2024 is to take India back to the Communist dictatorship era. , He added that “Rahul goes on to say that China is a deep and powerful concept that does not believe in intellectual property rights. I want to ask whether P. Chidambaram also thinks that dismantling copyright laws and encouraging piracy will affect manufacturing. Rahul also admits that he is fascinated by China and members of the Communist Party, who have shaped his views. So such rich admiration for the Chinese is understandable. Trying to pay off my debts!
“Rahul says he was spotted by terrorists in Kashmir, but knew they would not target him. If it was true why was it not reported to security agencies? Is Congress colluding with these terrorists to save Rahul? Was there some collusion?” “Rahul has described the Pulwama attack as “a car bomb in which 40 soldiers were killed”. How dare he insult our jawans by saying this? Sir, it was not a bomb, it was a terror attack. No wonder he refused to name Pakistan behind the Pulwama attack. Was this also a part of the Congress’s nexus with the extremists?”
Apart from Anurag Thakur and Himanta Sarma, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav also targeted
Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that there is no need to answer Rahul for this, because his needle is stuck in one place. As the leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi has a democratic right to question the Pegasus spyware. But when he made this allegation on foreign soil, he should have also told that the Supreme Court looked into the Pegasus case and found no evidence. BJP leaders said that at a time when the Indian Armed Forces are guarding the Line of Actual Control in a face-off, Rahul on the other hand is praising China. A BJP leader said, China has only three friends left in the world: Pakistan, North Korea and Rahul Gandhi. It may have been said in jest, but the message is clear that Rahul should have chosen his words carefully when he spoke at Cambridge.