KALPETTA: AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Sunday said she is willing to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency if Congress president Rahul Gandhi desires so.“I’m willing to contest from Varanasi if the party president asks me to do so,” Priyanka Gandhi told mediapersons after visiting the family members of CRPF jawan V V Vasantha Kumar --- who was killed in the February 14 Pulwama terror attack --- at his ancestral home in Vazhakandi near here on Sunday.
Priyanka, who campaigned for the second straight day for her brother Rahul in Wayanad, said he has brought many developmental projects to Amethi. Priyanka appealed to vote for the UDF as “the Congress and its allies were engaged in a fight, much bigger than just to gain power.”“We’re fighting because suddenly in our own country we aren’t free to express ourselves. Suddenly people are afraid. The institutions which are there to protect the power of the people have been undermined.
So too is democracy. And we must all realise this is not ordinary election. In this, the vote is either to save the country that we all love, the country that we all believe in, in which all of us are equal and are free to express ourselves, our religions, our ways of being, our ways of living, our ways of eating and a country in which rules are imposed on us by a narrow-minded ideology where only one kind of thinking prevails. A country in which a government is afraid of criticism,” she said.
Priyanka made a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi Government for making false promises to people and ignoring the country’s farmers. Responding to the remarks of the BJP on 26/11 Mumbai terror attack martyr Hemant Karkare, Priyanka said she has not understood the saffron party’s selectiveness in this matter. “A martyr is always a martyr,” she said.
Priyanka reached the jawan’s residence at 2.30 pm by road from Vythiri, where she was staying. She interacted with Vasantha’s mother Santha, wife Sheena, and children Anamika and Amardeep and spent about half-an-hour there. She had her lunch with the family members.
Priyanka also met hundreds of party workers waiting outside the residence. Sreedhanya Suresh, the IAS rank holder from the tribal community, was the translator. Rahul had planned to visit the jawan’s house, but was denied permission due to security reasons.Priyanka condoled the deaths in the Sri Lanka serial bomb blasts. “People were celebrating a day of happiness, but now they’re in immense grief. My condolences to all of them and support to all their families,” she said.It was Priyanka’s second visit to Wayanad, having accompanied Rahul when he filed his nomination papers on April 4.