Modi's autobiography will be called 'My Experiment With Lies', says Rahul in Bihar

Patna: “Mahatma Gandhi had written an autobiography: My Experiment with Truth. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may write one such book: My Experiment with Lies,” said former Congress president and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi here on Monday, taking at dig at the PM.

The Congress leader was in the state capital, where he trained his guns on the Modi government at the Centre, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, and also castigated RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat, whom he accused of being against “conducting the caste census.”

Addressing the ‘Save Constitution’ meet in Patna, Rahul said, “When you hold the copy of the Constitution, you realise it has the values and principles of Mahatma Gandhi, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, and Jawaharlal Nehru. It does not have the ideology of Savarkar... Gandhiji wrote an autobiography: My Experiments with Truth. PM Modi may write a book: My Experiment with Lies.”

Rahul went on to slam Modi and said, “I told the Prime Minister in Parliament that a façade of ‘50 per cent reservation quota’ has been created, which your NDA government will never be able to demolish. But we will do so when we come to power, as only then will the poor and marginalised sections, who are numerically strong, get their due in the power sharing.” To buttress his point, Rahul cited how around 10 industrialists have captured the corporate sector, while the same is true for the top bureaucracy, where Dalits and EBCs/OBCs officers have virtually no say in governance.

The die is cast(e)

Bihar recently conducted a caste census, where it was found that EBCs (Extremely Backward Castes) comprised 36 per cent of the population as compared to 27 per cent OBCs (Other Backward Castes) and 19 per cent Dalits. The upper castes together form 15.5 per cent.

Rahul, who favoured a nationwide caste census, asked the gathering to take a leaf out of the Telangana government’s book, which conducted a caste census in a meticulous way. “We want to give due representation to Dalits, EBCs, and OBCs, which we should have given earlier, but we erred. Having realised our folly, we will now rectify the mistake,” said the Congress leader.

The Congress itself took the initiative when it recently appointed Rajesh Kumar, a Dalit MLA, as the Bihar Congress president in place of Akhilesh Prasad Singh, a Bhumihar (upper caste) who was considered more close to Lalu Prasad than the grand old party.

Earlier, Rahul joined Kanhaiya Kumar, the NSUI in-charge and former JNUSU (Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union) president, at Begusarai in Bihar. Attired in a white T-shirt and joined by around 10,000 Congress leaders and workers, Rahul highlighted how the padyatra was aimed at raking up the perennial problem of unemployment and migration.

The RJD has, meanwhile, welcomed Rahul’s initiative. “Tejashwi Yadav has been raising this issue since 2020. The Rahul-Tejashwi team will firm up the INDIA bloc and help it give the NDA a crushing defeat during the ensuing Assembly polls, slated later this year,” said RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari.