MUMBAI: Sharpening his attack against the BJP, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi would run away from the government after his party is battered in the year-end Assembly elections.
At a gathering of booth-level workers at Goregaon, Rahul trained guns on the Prime Minister for addressing fugitives Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya as ‘bhai’.
“Nirav Modi, who ran away after duping the country of Rs 35,000 crore, and Vijay Mallya, who duped banks of Rs 9,000 crore are ‘bhai’ for the Prime Minister. Modiji used the word Niravbhai and Vijaybhai for these absconders,” Rahul said.
Someone in the crowd, possibly playing on the similar-sounding surnames, then asked about PM Modi. “He too shall run away,” Rahul quipped.
Rahul did not touch on whether PM Modi would run away from India like Nirav and Mallya. But what he said next indicated that what he had meant was that PM Modi would run away from the government.
“The BJP could somehow manage to survive in Gujarat, was defeated in Karnataka, but it will just disappear after the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan polls… The whole nation will defeat the BJP,” Rahul said.
He also took a dig at BJP leaders for not calling on ailing former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “We had contested against Vajpayeeji but when he was admitted, I was the first to meet him because I am a soldier of the Congress… we respect him as he was the Prime Minister. This is our culture,” he said.