NEW DELHI: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said he was different from PM Modi as he felt no animosity towards those who hated him.
“I am a person who has been taught to love even those people who dislike me. I feel no animosity towards anyone who opposes me. This is what makes me different from PM Modi,” Rahul said while addressing a gathering at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
Noting that he did not like an India where “people are persecuted for what they eat, drink, wear, or think”, Rahul said the Congress said a “an extremely nasty form of politics was currently taking root in the country.”
“We have been fighting the BJP and the RSS since the beginning. We will fight this nasty form of politics and we will defeat the BJP in the next election,” he said.
Taunting the PM for repeatedly asking what has been the Congress’ contribution in the past 70 years, Rahul said “India’s success belonged to its people and anyone who thinks that the Congress's policies were not part of that success, needs to write a new book.”
Flagging domestic issues like “highest record of unemployment in the last eight years” and “the levels of violence” the Congress chief said “the idea of India envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi was now being challenged and a general atmosphere of intimidation existed in India”
Rahul slammed the Modi government’s foreign policy as well. “One complaint I have against the BJP's foreign policy is that it is episodic rather than strategic,” he said. Talking about the Asian giant with whom India faces a border standoff at Doklam, Rahul said, “India has to have a peaceful and co-operative relationship with China.”
In the same breath he said that, “I don't buy the idea that India can't challenge and compete with China in manufacturing.”
Talking about Jammu and Kashmir bordering Pakistan, Rahul said the BJP’s policies had hit the border state. “In 2014 when I went to J&K I felt like crying. I saw what a bad political decision can to do years and years of policy making,” he said.
“Our Kashmir policy under then PM Manmohan Singh was about building bridges with people. When UPA came to power in 2004, we were handed a J&K that was burning. We made a plan and worked on it for 9 years,” he said.