NEW DELHI: Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he completely disagrees with the “personal statement” of his party leader Digvijaya Singh, who was all through his “Bharat Jodo Yatra” on the off-the-cuff remark on the 2019 surgical strike.
At a Press conference at Jhajjar Kotli in Jammu, he clarified that Digvijaya’s statement is a personal statement. The Congress rejects it since “we respect our Indian Army and we do not seek evidence or proof of anything done by the Army as we are proud of our Army,” Rahul said.
In reply to a question, Rahul said: “We are a democratic party and we are not a dictatorship. We don’t run our party with principles of coercion. We don’t appreciate Mr. Digvijaya’s personal views, but, the views of the party are above. Digvijaya Singh’s views. The views of the party are generated from a conversation within the party.”
He further elaborated that Digvijaya’s views are not held by the party. “We are absolutely crystal clear that the Armed Forces do a job exceptionally well and they do not need to be providing proof for anything.
Even Digvijaya Singh sought to end the row, saying “I have got the greatet regards for our defence forces.”
It is in the culture of our party to allow conversations and sometimes, when those conversations happen, people who have extreme views, air their views. So, we try to manage a conversation. In the BJP and in the RSS, there is no conversation. They just decide that this is what is going to be and nobody can talk after this. It is like demonetisation. The Prime Minister gets up one morning and says we are going to demonetise or like GST, where, you know, you completely destroy the backbone of the country, because you are not having a conversation.
“So, we think, a conversation is very-very important and sometimes, of course, there are people in every conversation, who will say ridiculous things and in this case, I am sorry to have to say this about a senior leader Digvijaya Singh, he said a ridiculous thing.”
He also felt happy that 90% of the party floated by Congress veteran leader have returned to the Congress and Azad is reduced to be a loner.
In Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s attack on him, Rahul said he doesn’t think Rajnath Ji was expressing his personal views. “He operates within a party where the top leadership tell him what to say. I don’t think he has a choice. His statement is the result of orders given to him by the top brass of the BJP,” Rahul was referring to Rajnath Singh’s remarks that the Bharat Joo Yatra is to spread hatred and the Congress is defaming India even abroad.
Rahul said his Yatra’s goal is to unite the nation and remove the atmosphere of hatred, spread by BJP and RSS in the country as also in Jammu and Kashmir. How can a Padyatra across the country that is uniting the people of India and bringing them together can harm interests of India, he asked.
“I can see how the hatred and violence that Mr. Rajnath Singh’s party is spreading, damages the country, I can see how dividing India between religions, between communities, between genders, is harming the country and I can also see how it is defaming the nation. If you look at all the newspapers abroad and you must spend some time doing it, you will find that they are all asking the question what has happened to India’s traditional values, what has happened to India’s brotherhood, what has happened to India’s strength under the current government. So the defamation is being done by the ideology of the BJP and the RSS,” Rahul said.
Inflation is going up and the unemployment is increasing because of the concentration of wealth in a handful of people, he said. He also called for the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir at the earliest and revival of the state assembly to give the people a vibrant democratic system.
