'Will save democracy': Cong on foundation day

The Congress kicked off its campaign for the 2024 general elections with a mega rally in Nagpur on Thursday, promising a minimum support income, a nationwide caste census and employment for the young, as it hailed Opposition unity and fired salvos at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

- Pradin Maitra

The rally — organised on the occasion of the 139th anniversary of its foundation day — was named “Hain Taiyyar Hum” (we are ready) and held in Nagpur, which hosts the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.

In the event, attended by nearly 100,000 people, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the party was prepared to save the country from destruction and ready for the ideological battle in next year’s polls. He framed the elections as a clash between the Congress’s vision of empowerment and freedom and the BJP’s alleged ideology of hate and inequality.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said the party was committed to implementing the Nyay scheme — which was part of its 2019 manifesto and promised cash up to ₹72,000 annually to the bottom 20% of families — especially for women. Speaking in Marathi, Kharge also said Nagpur was the land of revolutionaries where BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi once worked, and that the BJP will finish democracy if it came back to power.

Gandhi attacked the BJP for questioning the Congress’s contribution to the country and said that before Independence, princely states were “in partnership with the British”, while it was the Constitution shaped by Mahatma Gandhi, BR Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru that protected the people’s rights and gave every citizen the right to vote.

“The people in the RSS and BJP were against this... for years they never saluted the national flag,” he alleged.

Gandhi said the BJP’s ideology was that of kings who did not listen to anyone. Citing a conversation with an unnamed BJP member of Parliament who was earlier with the Congress, Gandhi said that the BJP treated its workers and leaders poorly and when an order came from the top, it had to be adhered to.