GUWAHATI: Enraged that sedition charges had been filed against him, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday asserted, “Hindustan is in my blood”.
“They have filed a sedition charge against me, calling me a traitor. But I spend my days working for the country. Two members in my family were killed and they call me a traitor. Hindustan is in my blood,” he told panchayat representatives at a rally in Nagaon, Assam.
Rahul said people fighting for the poor and the weaker sections were branded traitors and those working for the rich and a select group of industrialists were called patriots. The Gandhi scion took potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the MGNREGA programme.
“Speaking in Parliament after becoming Prime Minister in 2014, Modiji had said he hadn’t seen a useless programme like MGNREGA. A few days ago, I asked (Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley about Modiji’s observation. Jaitleyji told me that MGNREGA had played a key role in economic growth during UPA’s time. He said ‘money came to villages due to MGNREGA and we will not stop it. We will invest more in the programme’,” Gandhi said.
Addressing a rally in southern Assam’s Silchar earlier in the day, he said students’ voices were being suppressed in colleges and universities where RSS ideology was being imposed. He said Congress wanted everyone to have a place in the country and everyone to be able to voice his/her opinion.