Gandhi said that one side wants to distract people and divide them, while the other wants the citizens to unite, focus on their future, and take back their power.

"On one side stand the forces of this new version of India, and on the other stand those who fight for the India that was built from the toil of our people and the blood of our martyrs," she noted.

The Congress leader said that the very foundations of India's nationhood stand at the threshold of destruction today, but some people tell her instead that a "new India" is being created.

She claimed that "the new India" that people were being asked to accept was one where "force asserts itself over righteousness and laws are enacted, bypassing the processes of democracy and being enforced upon people against their will."

"In this new nation, the Prime Minister's men speak haughtily about changing the constitution that was written with the blood of our freedom fighters and martyrs.

"They treat the Constitution of India, which upholds our rights to liberty, equality, and brotherhood, as an instrument of their own greed and ambition, as if it is a piece of paper worth nothing," she alleged.

Further attacking the PM and his government, she said that while Modi claims to fight for the rights of women, his administration did nothing when women were paraded naked in strife-torn Manipur.

"Those in power tell women what to wear, they propagate laws that demand women's movements to be registered with the police, and they claim the right to decide whom women can love and whom they can marry.

"The government protects rapists and defends the oppressors and abusers of women, they vilify victims of heinous crimes, using the entire strength of their administrations to question the characters of victims of abuse. This is the new India," she alleged.

Gandhi likened the government to "thugs" who oppress those who raise their heads in protest, and alleged that the Centre "harasses, accuses, and imprisons those who dare to speak against it."

She further claimed that policies are made for the benefit of the PM's "monopolist friends" while the masses are pushed into unemployment and poverty.

"Public assets that belong to the people of India, assets that were built by the sweat and toil of our people, are handed to the Prime Minister's billionaire friends one after the other with impunity.

"Airports, ports, highways, vast tracts of public land, and whole sectors of industry like cement, power, and coal are virtually controlled by just a handful of businessmen close to the Prime Minister," she claimed.

Referring to the electoral bonds, she termed them as a form of "extortion" and said the government agencies, meant to protect the law, were being "turned into unlawful extornists" and also used to silence voices of dissent.

India Wrap 2023

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