Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for suppressing the Dalits, backward classes and women and not letting them fulfill their dreams. “The BJP is creating an atmosphere of fear. They don’t want Dalits, backward classes and women to fulfill their dreams. The BJP is creating an atmosphere of fear. They don’t want Dalits, backward classes and women to fulfill their dreams,” Gandhi said while addressing a Jan Swaraj Sammelan at Raipur in Chhattisgarh.
Gandhi said that it is their duty is to enhance the Panchayati Raj to protect and restore their rights that the BJP is trying to snatch away. The Congress President said that the Panchayati Raj would become decentralized into the hands of the people and that water, forests and land rights would belong to the Adivasis, they would be given the power to become self-sufficient. “Every citizen of the country must be part of the progress of the country, be it a Dalit, an Adivasi,” he said.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ignoring the farmers’ grievances, Gandhi said that the Congress considers the farmers to be the backbone of the country.
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Highlighting the recent four Supreme Court judges coming out in public and talking about their concerns, Rahul Gandhi said that such a thing has happened for the first time in a democratic country. “Usually, people go to the Supreme Court for justice. But for the first time in 70 years, we saw SC judges coming to the people complaining that they are being intimidated and they are not being allowed to do their jobs. Something like this happened for the first time in a democratic country. It happens in dictatorships. It happened in Pakistan & Africa. But this happened for the first time in 70 years in India,” he said.
He accused the RSS of crushing the independence of institutions and trying to capture them. “The ideals of Mahatma Gandhi are threatened everyday but, the spirit of the people of India will stand strong,” he added.
Putting light on their 2019 plans, the Congress president said that the grand old party will focus on three things – education, healthcare and employment.
Gandhi is on a two-day visit to Chhattisgarh to help gear up the party machinery and attend the 25th anniversary celebration of the constitutional amendment of Panchayati Raj institutions.