Rahul eyes 2019 polls, promises to defeat Modi

Says 'acche din' will come when Cong wins

Determined to oust the Narendra Modi government in 2019, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday showed that he has taken firm control of his party by chairing a convention against demonetisation.

At the day-long Jan Vedana Sammelan, Rahul hit back at Modi for unleashing hardships on people, and declared that India will see ‘acche din’ only when the Congress is voted to power in 2019.

Speaker after speaker at the convention, attended by over 6,000 Congress workers – from the working committee members to the district presidents, urged Rahul to lead the fight against the BJP.

“Acche din (better days) are only going to come when the Congress comes to power in 2019,” said Rahul amid a loud round of applause.

In his inaugural remarks, Rahul accused the prime minister of systematically chipping at the institutions the Congress had assiduously built over the past 70 years.

“The BJP, under Narendra Modi, has done in two and a half years what we did not do in 70 years... every single institution we built... the BJP, RSS and Modi have weakened the institutions,” Rahul said, referring to the role of the RBI in the note ban decision, and the government’s tiff with the judiciary with regard to the appointment of judges.

“The Congress party will defeat these people and remove them from here. We will defeat their ideology,” Rahul said amid slogans of ‘Modi ko hatao’.

Mimicks PM

It was a Rahul Gandhi show throughout, with the crowd frequently raising slogans of ‘Rahulji sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hai’.

Rahul hit out at Modi, often mimicking him by using the prime minister’s catch phrase ‘mitron’ and even likening his speeches to dialogues delivered by actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Drawing up the contrasts between the Congress and the BJP, Rahul said the Congress always held out an assurance to the people not to be afraid.

“On the other hand, Modi and the RSS believe in instilling fear,” he said.