Congress’ ‘Rahulyaan’ neither launched, nor getting anywhere: Rajnath Singh

Taking a jab at Rahul Gandhi, defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that while the BJP had promised in its manifesto to launch the Gaganyaan manned mission to space in the next five years, the Congress party’s ‘Rahulyaan’ was neither “getting launched nor landing anywhere”.

While various space programmes and projects were being launched in the country, “the launching of Congress’ young leader has not happened for the last 20 years”, the defence minister said.

Speaking in a rally in Kerala, from where Gandhi is hoping to get re-elected for the second consecutive time, Singh said the Congress leader had migrated to the southern state from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh because he had lost the seat in 2019.


“Rahul Gandhi does not have courage to contest from there this time, and this time the people of Wayanad (Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency) have also made up their minds that they will not make Rahul their member of Parliament,” he added.

With one week to go before the LS polls in Kerala, the BJP is pulling all stops to open its account in the coastal state, where it did not win any seats in 2019 and had to contend with just 15% of the vote share. Singh was campaigning in Pathanamthitta for BJP candidate Anil Antony, the elder son of Congress leader and former defence minister AK Antony.

The Congress leader has opposed his son running on a BJP ticket and stated that his rival would win.

Commenting on the situation, Singh implored the former defence minister to support his own son, saying, “I know he (AK Antony) is a principled person and I understand his compulsions. It is difficult for him to support Anil Antony. However, I would like to tell him that Anil is your son. You may not vote for him or canvass votes for him, but you are his father so I would like to request that your blessings should be with him.”