Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | 'Seems there's a lot of desperation and worry in you': Kharge writes to Modi

The Congress President wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, amid the Lok Sabha elections in India, after Modi's letter to NDA candidates ahead of the third phase of polling asking them to raise awareness about Congress' 'divisive' agenda.

New Delhi: Challenging Narendra Modi or anyone deputed by him for a debate on their manifesto, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said the only appeasement one saw is that of the Chinese by the the Prime Minister who “refuses to call (them) ghuspaithiye (infiltrators)”.

Responding to Modi’s letter where he asked NDA candidates to counter Congress’ narrative and oppose its “politics of division and appeasement”, he also charged the Prime Minister of “not (being) interested in talking about” “every widening” inequality or unemployment and “unprecedented” price rise and rising atrocities among women.

Claiming that the Prime Minister’s letter showed that his “lies” in speeches were not having an effect and he now wants the candidates to amplify it, he said Modi was using language not befitting the office of Prime Minister and the “tone and tenor” betrayed “desperation and worry”.

“The Congress would like to challenge you or anyone you depute to debate with us on our manifesto and the points you have made. As I mentioned in the earlier letter, when the elections are over, people will remember you as the Prime Minister who indulged in divisive and communal speeches filled with lies to avoid an inevitable defeat,” he said.

In his three-page letter to Modi, the Congress president said, “repeating a lie a thousand times will not make it the truth” and referred to his party’s manifesto, which he was sure that voters “intelligent enough” to read the ‘Nyay Patra’ will know what it stands for.

Referring to allegations by Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah that the Congress is practising “appeasement politics”, Kharge shot back, “the only appeasement that we have seen in the last ten years is the appeasement of Chinese by you and your ministers.” Modi had said that Congress will redistribute wealth to infiltrators, in an apparent reference to Muslims.

“Even today, you refuse to call China as ‘ghuspaithiye’ (infiltrators) instead on 19 June, 2020, you said ‘na koi ghusa hai, na hi koi ghus gaya hai’ (none has entered, none is there) insulting the supreme sacrifice of 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan,” he said adding the Chinese imports have risen by 54.76 per cent in the last five years alone and crossed $101 billion in 2023-24.

Kharge also said the low turnout mentioned by Modi in his letter showed that people are not enthusiastic about his policies and speeches. “This is not because of the summer heat but because the poor have been burnt by your policies…If the voters are not keen to vote for you, do not blame your karyakartas (workers),” he said.

Kharge also rebutted Modi’s claims that the Congress will divert SC, ST and OBC quota to “our vote-bank”, referring to Muslims. He said “our vote-bank” is “every Indian – the poor, the marginalised, the women, the aspirational youth, the labour class, the Dalits and the adivasis”.

Seeking a clarification from Modi on why he is opposed to quota for SCs, STs and OBCs on their population, he claimed everyone knows that RSS-BJP opposed reservations “at every stage since 1947” and “everyone knows” that they want to change the Constitution to end reservation.

He also called Modi’s reference to Congress bringing inheritance tax in his letter as a “lie” and reminded him that it was his former Finance Minister and others who repeatedly mentioned it.

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