Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy seemed to drop a hint that Rahul Gandhi might contest again from Wayanad. Inaugurating the public rally marking the conclusion of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s (KPCC) political outreach programme, Samaragni, Mr. Reddy said: “Mr. Gandhi is fighting a tooth-and-claw battle against the BJP to save the country from fascism. In Kerala, he need not worry about his constituency. That frees him to focus on spearheading the national-level battle against the BJP.”
Mr. Reddy also launched a no-holds-barred attack against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), setting the template for Congress’s campaign in the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala.
Mr. Reddy drew an equivalency between the LDF government and the Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) administration he ended in Telangana. “Both are inherently corrupt like the BJP,” Mr. Reddy said.
Mr. Reddy said he was a “worker-friendly and not a leader-friendly leader”. He said Congress workers in Kerala recurrently braved a vindictive CPI(M) that used murder and violence to crush dissent. “The key to Congress victory lies in the hands of such committed workers”, he added.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot chose not to attack the CPI(M), an INDIA bloc ally, directly. Instead, he said secular parties should sink their provincial differences and close ranks to counter the BJP’s almost existential threat to the country’s polity. “It is not an election to ascend to power at the Centre. It is an existential battle to rid India of fascism,” Mr. Pilot said.
He said the Sangh Parivar leaders received sizeable retainers from the colonial masters when Congress workers took bullets for the country’s freedom. “The BJP and RSS have no stake in the country’s constitution”, he said.
Congress leader Jignesh Mevani said the BJP was patently anti-Dalit and anti-minority. The RSS sought to haul India back to the Middle Ages by creating a caste-based social order based on the Manu Smriti. The Vedic text relegated Dalits and OBCs to the bottom rung of the Hindu majoritarian society the BJP hoped to forge. Moreover, the RSS’s ideological texts perceived minorities as fight columnists.
The Congress rally had an awkward moment when Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan publicly corrected KPCC president K. Sudhakaran for chiding party workers for exiting the venue. “The president should realise that Congress workers were standing in the sun and braving the heat and dust since 3 p.m. It’s not a great wrong to leave the venue after spending five hours for the party,” Mr. Satheesan said.
AICC general secretary in charge of Kerala Deepa Dasmunshi; Shashi Tharoor, MP; UDF convener M.M. Hassan; senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala; Kodikunnil Suresh, MP; District Congress Committee (DCC) president, Palode Ravi, were among those on the dais.
