Voicing his opinions on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in England, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said that the “Indian democracy is under attack” and that the BJP leader is “blowing the country to smithereens”.
And this is not Gandhi’s maiden jibe on the prime minister during his foreign visits. Be it Germany or the UK or Sweden, Gandhi has been blatant in his attacks against the BJP-led government, and this is usually followed by a boiling cauldron of reactions from the saffron party members back home.
Let’s take a look at instances in which Gandhi chose to do a Modi rant abroad.
Cambridge, March 2023
Gandhi delivered the lecture ‘Learning to Listen in the 21st Century’ at the Cambridge Judge Business School on Tuesday evening as a Visiting Fellow.
Referring to the controversial Pegasus snooping issue, Gandhi alleged that the Israeli spyware was installed on the phones of a large number of politicians, including him.
“I, myself, had Pegasus on my phone. A large number of politicians have Pegasus on their phones. I’ve been called by intelligence officers who say please be careful what you say on the phone because we are sort of recording this stuff. So, this is a constant pressure that we feel,” the 52-year-old former Congress chief claimed.
Cambridge, May 2022
During the Ideas for India conference at Cambridge University in UK, Rahul Gandhi launched a series of attacks against the BJP and PM Modi and hit out at the government for promoting a “private-sector monopoly” in the country.
“What emerged out of freedom movement was a negotiation between these states and identities and religion. So, India emerged bottom-up and all these states UP, Maharashtra, Assam, and Tamil Nadu got together and negotiated peace. From this union of states, which required a conversation, emerged the instrument of that conversation- the Constitution, the idea that one man will have one vote, the election system, the IITs, and the IIMs,” Rahul Gandhi said during the conversation.
Germany, 2018
Several more controversial comments followed like when he said violence against women was increasing in India or when at a German university in 2018, Gandhi said China was expanding and flourishing unlike India.
During his visit to Germany in 2018, Gandhi attacked Modi of being “unpatriotic.” “Mr. Modi does something very unpatriotic…he takes that anger and utilises it for himself and damages our country,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Singapore, 2018
In 2018, during a visit to Singapore to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Rahul Gandhi triggered another row and was attacked by the BJP for demeaning the prestige of his country abroad.
The Congress leader said: “There is a particular type of politics that’s not only happening in India but in a number of places — of dividing people, of using their anger to win elections and that’s what is happening in India.” He went on to add that unlike Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he loved even those who disliked him.
London, August 2018
In August 2018, Rahul Gandhi likened the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to the terrorist organisation Muslim Brotherhood.
“The RSS idea is similar to the idea of Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world,” he said at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a think tank based in London.
Malaysia, 2018
Gandhi again attacked PM Modi for his sudden decision of demonistiaon, during an interaction with the Indian diaspora in Malaysia.
“If I was prime minister and someone had given me a file with demonetisation written on it, I would have thrown it in the dustbin. That is how I would have rolled it out,” Gandhi said.
Berkeley, 2017
In 2017 in Berkeley, Rahul Gandhi said Dalits and Muslims were being shot in India. “This is new in India, it damages the idea of India,” he said.
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