Ashok Gehlot Dubs PM Modi Over His Split In Congress Jibe As ‘Baseless’, Says He Should Look At ‘His Own House’

Former Rajasthan Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Monday dubbed the remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi about a split in the grand old party as “baseless” and slammed him saying that he should be worried about his BJP as they have not been able to name the party chief in last two years. 

He also hit back at the Election Commission for the Mahagatbandhan’s defeat in Bihar as he accused the poll panel of allowing to distribute the Rs 10,000 to women under Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana during elections in the state. 

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Guardian, Gehlot while commenting on the victory of the party in Rajasthan by-polls said, “Look, the situation in Rajasthan is completely different. If you talk to anyone there, anywhere in the entire state, in any village, you’ll hear the same thing and that is where people mentioned that the previous government’s initiatives-in social security, health, education Congress government set records in all of them.”

Taking a pot shot at the BJP government in the state, the former Chief Minister said: “And now the new government that came in has shut down many of our schemes or weakened them. So, it’s visible to people-what the hell happened? It’s visible to people, and governance isn’t happening at all.”

He highlighted that there is anger among people toward the new government too. 

“These were all reasons, because of which we won there (Anta assembly seat) by more than fifteen thousand votes,” the Congress leader said.

When asked about Modi’s jibe at the Congress post Bihar results saying that it will be soon witness split, Gehlot hit back and said, “Look, it’s complete baseless. Modi ji has no right to talk about Congress like this. Modi ji doesn’t even have the right to speak about Congress splitting, that it will break into two pieces or whatever he says.

“I don’t consider that appropriate. He should take care of his own house. It’s been almost two years now, and he hasn’t been able to appoint a BJP president,” he said, adding that (JP) Nadda is still sitting there. 

“Who knows what goes on behind the scenes between RSS and BJP as it’s been a year and a half to two years, and the party hasn’t been able to elect its own president. 

“So, is the split in their house or in Congress? If there’s a split in theirs, that’s why they can’t appoint a president. Over here, (Malikarjun) Kharge ji is the president. So, he’s made a comment that’s completely unacceptable-no one in our party can accept it,” the Congress leader mentioned. 

He asserted that Congress is united under Kharge’s leadership, under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, “and we all unitedly respect Sonia Gandhi ji”.

“So, such a situation has never arisen in our party, nor has there been any discussion. Modi ji is the one who started this discussion to distract from the fact that he can’t appoint his own president,” he said.

Gehlot, when asked about Prime Minister Modi dubbing Congress as Maowadi and Muslimjeevi and nationalist leaders ingrand old party being angry with naamdar, said, “All that nationalist talk and such-those are his empty slogans, they have no substance. Modi ji keeps spouting such slogans, and I don’t want to respond to those slogans.”

To a question that what went wrong in Bihar polls as Mahagatbandhan was expecting a good show in the state, the former chief minister who was appointed as senior observer in the state along with Bhupesh Baghel and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “Look, there must be many other reasons, but this one is clear. 

Citing examples of Rajasthan, Gehlot said that we had the government there, so we had the 2022 budget scheme to give mobile phones to our people, to women, to one crore thirty-five lakh or twenty lakh women were to receive them. 

“As soon as the elections were declared, that scheme was shut down and we couldn’t distribute mobile phones, we could only distribute to forty lakh people. Almost one crore women were deprived. Pensions were stopped. There was that scheme of ours for crores of people, for the poor. Even the Annapurna scheme was stopped. We didn’t even object, because the Election Commission’s directive is that elections must be fair, and we cooperated.”

Lamenting at the Election Commission, he said, “Here (Bihar), a blatant dance has happened in Bihar-elections when elections wete underway. 

“First phase polling is happening, second phase election polling is coming up. And in the midst of that, tell me, what do you call giving Rs 10,000? They distributed it to women-one woman gets it, and it’s said that women voted for them.

“I want to say it wasn’t just the woman who voted for them, the entire family of the woman voted for them. Rs 10,000 came into their family. Pensions were given there to the elderly or others, the amount of pension was increAsed from Rs 400 to Rs 1,100 which was not increased in last 20 years,” he said. 

He alleged that those pensions kept being distributed right up to one day before polling. 

“So, tell me, what do you call this? There’ll be many other things with the money too-the money that’s openly distributed, you hear about cash being handed out during elections. You’ve officially put Rs 10,000 into their accounts. So, these antics that happened are also a reason why such results came there,” the former chief minister explained. 

The Mahagatbandhan in Bihar could manage to win only 33 seats while the Nitish Kumar led NDA won 202 seats in the 243 member assembly during the Bihar polls. The Congress performance also dwindled as it managed to win only six seats.