Pin down Narendra Modi to Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi tells state Congress men

NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has demanded greater aggression from his colleagues in Gujarat to checkmate Chief Minister Narendra Modi, asking them to pin him down in the state.


Gandhi’s nudge comes even as the BJP is planning a series of public events for Modi across the country. At a review meeting of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, Gandhi told senior leaders that the aggression in tackling Modi should stem from Gujarat.

“Rahul Gandhi said that the politics which was flowing out from Gujarat should not be allowed to succeed nationally as it had the capacity to affect the unity of the country,” a senior leader present at the meeting said. He asked the Gujarat Congress to find ways and means to limit Modi’s excursions within the state.

“It was decided in the meeting that whenever Modi would leave Gujarat for any political or other speaking engagements, Congress would organise a huge gathering and protest inside Gujarat seeking explanation for his negligence and absence.

The attempt will be to make it uncomfortable for him to leave the state unattended,” the source said. The issues to be highlighted as failures of Modi’s administration were also listed. Among them was the engineering admissions merit list which will affect the fate of at least of 50,000 students.

The Gujarat HC has asked the government to redo the merit list for engineering college admissions as it was found that more students from outside the state were eligible for admissions.

The government is inclined towards appealing against this order, an issue of importance in the Gujarati vs non-Gujarati narrative. Other issues included the failure of the state government in fulfilling crop insurance commitments and the law and order problems in Rajkot following an honour killing in Amreli.

“We want to be seen. The issue of the honour killing in Amreli wasn’t highlighted in the national med i a a nd we want to fill that gap. There is a law and order problem in Gujarat,” said a senior party leader.

Congress sources said that the thrust of the meeting was Modi should not feel easy to leave the state so often. A largescale restructuring of the PCC organisation is also in the offing. BJP on its part dismissed the Congress strategy.

“When I heard that this was what was discussed in the meeting, I laughed. The people of Gujarat are intelligent enough to understand. It’s clear now Rahul Gandhi is trying to save the Congress’ existence of which nothing remains,” said party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.