‘We can drive them crazy’: Rahul Gandhi takes aim at PM Modi, Amit Shah

In a statement suggesting that students’ protest and the Parliament session washout have the ruling BJP at a loss for strategy, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said “we” will not relent till PM Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah quit power under pressure. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge said Modi and Shah will destroy the country and not leave anything for the coming generations. Kharge said Gujarat produced visionary leaders, but now “these two” are ruining everything.Rahul said the country is witnessing a fight between “those who give orders and those who want to express themselves”, adding that the country has started expressing itself after a lot of people behaved like “cowards” against the combine of RSS-BJP for a long time.“Our job is to make India express itself and break that order,” the Congress leader said, adding “we will drive them crazy”.Rahul and Kharge addressed a conclave of Rachnatmak Congress, that seeks to create a common political strategy with non-Congress platforms of people’s struggle.Rahul said Modi is unable to sleep at night while Amit Shah, who was eulogised as Chanakya, did not come to Parliament for 20 days. “Because for the first time, they are feeling India’s expression. They realise this country will not stop expressing itself. It will break the RSS order.”“Till Modi and Shah give their resignations, they will not be able to sleep, we will keep them awake,” he said.He lashed out at the RSS as a “bunch of jokers”, and said the organisation has been reduced to being an instrument of big capital like Adani and Ambani, far from its original base of small businesses.The leader of opposition said Modi has messed up India’s national security and foreign policy, the latter because of the ignorant idea that he is making friends with the world leaders and foreign policy is about hugging them. He said Modi thought foreign leaders were his friends, and “they caught him”. He said India squandered a great opportunity presented by the Iran war to play the mediator, and the role was usurped by Pakistan.In what had the large audience from across the country in splits, Rahul illustrated Modi’s hugging by giving a bear hug to Rachnatmak Congress chief Sandeep Dikshit - who in turn asked Rahul jokingly “if he had thought he was hugging Italian PM Meloni”, and by enacting other practical jokes. He also cited a childhood anecdote of how then PM Indira Gandhi did not take seriously the US administration’s attempt to flatter her via the then First Lady.Get the latest India News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.