New Delhi:
Rahul Gandhi doesn’t want to engage with the government and speak, he wants to change the regime through “mobocracy”, Smriti Irani, the National General Secretary of the BJP told NDTV today amid scaled-up Opposition protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV’s Shiv Aroor, Irani said in 2025, Rahul Gandhi had announced that he “no longer fights the BJP, he fights the Indian state”.
Anyone knows what is the Indian state, she said. — “The Indian state is denoted by its democratic framework”.
“Who ensures a vibrant democracy in our country? The Election Commission of India. Who does Rahul Gandhi incessantly attack? The Election Commission of India,” she said.
“Before we do this interview, this evening Rahul Gandhi’s cohort did a press conference, where they said that their agenda is not transparency, their agenda is only and only regime change,” she added.
Rahul Gandhi, she added, “believes it is his birthright to rule this country”.
“He is welcome to his belief but in the pursuit of that belief, can he break the law? Can he incite violence?” she questioned.
Gandhi, spearheading the opposition protests, has been vehemently attacked by the BJP, with some of the leaders saying that he is unfit to hold the office of the Leader of the Opposition.
Irani appeared to take a similar view, saying Rahul Gandhi is the Leader of the Opposition who has said “he wants to wage war against the Indian state. He is a member of parliament who has chosen the street now”.
“The Leader of Opposition neither wants to give proof (against vote theft) because he says there is no proof. But he also doesn’t want to engage with the government and speak,” she said.
“Are people today who are a part of Rahul Gandhi’s group, cohort, abusing the Prime Minister of India? Are they abusing his dead mother? Are they abusing the Indian Army? Are they assaulting police officers? Yes. Are they still being given sites where they can protest? Yes,” she added.
Asked about the “foreign hand” issue, she said, “I will attract your attention to the fact that the Congress has had leaders go to Pakistan, go to the UK and say that they need foreign help… Forget about everybody else. Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi themselves have gone up and said we need your help. Is that a responsible Leader of Opposition? It is not as if we have not been in opposition. I have been in the Rajya Sabha while we were in opposition. Did you ever hear any of us go to any country and say let’s scheme against a democratically elected government?”
