Congress cries wolf: Rahul Gandhi's Misleading UP Claim

Rahul Gandhi predicts Modi's defeat, claiming the INDIA bloc will triumph in Uttar Pradesh and win at least 50 seats. He accuses Modi of waiving loans for the wealthy while ignoring the poor and alleges a BJP conspiracy to scrap the Constitution. Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav hold joint rallies, promising development and opposing the BJP's anti-reservation stance. They accuse the BJP of disrupting rally preparations and fear-mongering, but remain confident in their victory.

An INDIA bloc storm is arriving in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday and asserted that Narendra Modi will not make it to the post of prime minister this time.

"You take it as a written guarantee that Narendra Modi is not going to become the prime minister of India. It's over," he said at a rally in Kannauj, where Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav is contesting the Lok Sabha polls.

"Aap likh ke le lo (take it in writing)," he said at the rally predicting that the BJP was set to lose.

Gandhi and Yadav addressed joint rallies in Kannauj and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, where the two parties are contesting as allies. Under their seat-sharing agreement, the Congress is fighting on 17 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The INDIA block has done the needed poll preparations over the past years, the Congress leader said listing his Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Nyay Yatra and opposition meetings. A ''shop of love (mohabbat ki dukaan)'' has also been opened in the "bazaar of hatred".

In his Kanpur address, Gandhi claimed the Congress will win at least 50 seats in UP.

Citing a news report about vehicles being stopped from reaching the rally venue," Gandhi said this would not prevent Akhilesh Yadav from winning in Kannauj.

''And in Uttar Pradesh, you will see, I am giving it to you in writing that the storm of the INDIA bloc is arriving. You take it in writing. The biggest defeat of the BJP is going to take place in Uttar Pradesh," he said.

He said this was because people have decided on change in Uttar Pradesh. "A change is going to happen in India. People have made up their mind,'' Gandhi added.

He said Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will try to divert people's attention, and asked them to focus only on a single issue – the Constitution. Gandhi said the book mentions issues like the rights of Dalits, tribals, famers and labourers, as well as reservation, land and employment.

"And the BJP has made up its mind that if it wins the elections, it is going to scrap the Constitution," he claimed. But he and Akhilesh Yadav have decided that no power on earth shall touch it, he added.

"The soul, sentiments, future and development of India's poor reside in this book,'' he said.

The Congress leader accused the prime minister of waiving loans worth Rs 16 lakh crore of just "22 people". These people, he said, have wealth equal to that of 70 crore people in the country.

"So, we have decided that if he could make 22 'arabpatis', then we can also make crores of 'lakhpatis','' he said.

He charged that the BJP collected crores of rupees through the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme from a vaccine manufacturing company while people were dying due to Covid and being asked to "beat thalis".

''To the farmers, I would say that if he has waived the loans of the 'arabpatis', we are going to waive your loans,'' he said.

He said if INDIA bloc comes to power the government will give to the poor, farmers, labourers and unemployed youngsters the amount of money Modi gave to "Adani-Ambani".

He countered the prime minister again on his recent allegation that there is a nexus between the Congress and business tycoons Adani and Ambani.

''You have seen that in 10 years, Narendra Modi ji had not taken the names of Adani and Ambani," the Congress leader said. But now he is taking the names of people who he thinks can save him, Gandhi claimed.

"The INDIA bloc has surrounded me, I am losing. Save me, Adani-Ambani ji save me," the Congress leaders mocked, suggesting that the two industrialists were Modi's "friends".

"So he also knows in which 'tempo' and what kind of money Adani ji sends. The prime minister has the personal experience of the tempo," Gandhi said, referring to the PM election speech on Wednesday.

Modi had asked if the Congress received ''tempo-loads of black money'' from the businessmen to make Gandhi "stop" abusing them.

In his speech, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the BJP has scored low in the General Election phases so far.

He said Kannauj was taken to the "heights of development" by the earlier SP government in Uttar Pradesh. "People who travel the highway know that the highway was built by the 'Samajwadis'," he added.

"We assure the people of Kannauj that we will work to enhance the fragrance of development," he said, alluding to the region's perfume trade.

Yadav alleged that that the industrialists in Kanpur faced discrimination from the BJP government.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who attended the Kannauj meeting, also claimed that the BJP wants to scrap the Constitution to end reservation.

He said the "BJP people" got the house where Akhilesh Yadav had lived and a temple he visited in Kannauj "washed" because of "hate".

Kannauj and Kanpur go to the polls on May 13.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)