The time has come for a ‘BJP versus All’ and ‘Modi versus Rahul Gandhi’ contest.”= Ashok Gehlot

Jaipur. Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said at a program that

Recently, during the INDIA alliance meeting, Rahul Gandhi articulated his views with great clarity. You may have also seen the podcast he recently gave to the media; I urge you to watch and listen to it, as he spoke very openly and candidly.It is my firm belief that the INDIA alliance needs to be further strengthened today, and the Congress bears the primary responsibility for this, as it is the largest national party within the alliance. Recently, Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (UBT) stated that parties that had previously broken away from the Congress should return to the fold; I have strongly supported this statement. Furthermore, I believe the INDIA alliance should now openly entrust its leadership to Rahul Gandhi so that the picture before the public is crystal clear and the contest becomes a direct ‘Modi versus Rahul Gandhi’ face-off.

The public always wants to know who the universally accepted face is that stands before them as an alternative. We must not forget history; the same thing happened during Indira Gandhi’s time. Back then, too, opposition forces created an atmosphere of ‘Congress versus All.’ A similar situation was engineered during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure when false allegations regarding Bofors were leveled against him, and we lost the election due to the resulting smear campaign. The outcome was that V.P. Singh became Prime Minister for merely a year, even though the reality was that the Bofors allegations held no substance. When the Kargil War took place and those very Bofors guns proved vital for the country, our brave soldiers chanted “Long live Rajiv Gandhi” while operating them. Yet, regrettably, our government had fallen earlier precisely because of those false Bofors allegations.

In much the same way, the government of the respected Manmohan Singh was ousted based on fabricated allegations regarding the 2G spectrum and ‘Coalgate’ (the coal scam). Today, I ask…  I wonder, where did that Lokpal movement vanish? The RSS and the BJP joined forces to project a Gandhian figure like Anna Hazare as the face of the movement; they used him as a pawn before the nation, disrupted the country’s political climate, and ousted Manmohan Singh’s government from power.This has been their modus operandi all along, whether during the era of Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi. They orchestrated a ‘Congress versus the rest’ trap. And I say with deep regret that, during that period, even progressive parties like the CPI, CPM, and Socialist parties shared a platform with the BJP and raised slogans like “Remove Congress, Save the Country.” However, the people of the country are wise; within just two and a half years, an ‘Indira Gandhi wave’ swept the nation—Congress returned to power with a thumping majority, and the people proudly reinstated Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister.

History bears witness to how they vilified Rajiv Gandhi over the Bofors case, which involved a sum of sixty crore rupees. Yet today, when we level direct allegations of corruption amounting to twelve thousand crore rupees regarding the Rafale deal, the media does not even treat it as an issue! You can imagine for yourselves the state the country has reached.The time has come for the contest to be ‘BJP versus all other parties’; only then will their eyes be opened. The Congress must take the initiative in this regard, and it will do so. Once the people realize that the country’s true reality and well-being lie with the Congress, the parties currently allied with the NDA—standing with Modi and the BJP—will abandon the BJP. When the electorate in the strongholds of these regional parties turns against the BJP, these parties will be compelled to leave the NDA and seek to join the INDIA alliance. That is the day the BJP will truly understand its actual standing on the ground.