Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday exuded confidence that his party will win the upcoming assembly elections in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. “There's no way we are not going to win any of them,” said the Wayanad MP, speaking at an event in the national capital. “I would say right now, we are probably winning Telangana, we are certainly winning Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan — we are very close and I think we will be able to win,” he said. The above-mentioned states are due to undergo polls by the end of this year.
Sharing an “important lesson” that the party learnt in Karnataka — where it made a comeback earlier this year with sweeping majority — the Congress MP said that BJP wins districting and not allowing the opposition to construct a narrative.
“What we did in Karnataka is that we fought in a way where BJP could not define the narrative.”
Referring to the slurs raised by BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali in Lok Sabha as a “distraction”, Gandhi claimed that the party wanted to deviate from the Opposition’s demand for a caste census.
“They know that a caste census is a fundamental thing that people of India want and they don't want to have that discussion,” he said, adding, “so every time we bring a point on the table, they use this type of stuff to distract, and we have learnt now how to deal with it.”
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Fight To Control Narrative
According to Gandhi, one of the main factors that led Congress’s victory in Karnataka was controlling the narrative which he claimed was happening in Telangana, MP, and Chhattisgarh.
“What we did in Karnataka, we gave a clear vision for the state and then we controlled the narrative,” he said.
“If you look at the telangana election, we are controlling the narrative, the BJP is not even in the narrative,” he added. “We are controlling the narrative in MP and Chhattisgarh no matter what the BJP tries to do, they are not capturing the narrative anymore.”
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One Nation One Election BJP’s Distraction
Gandhi dubbed the issue of one nation, one election as also one of the distractions created by the ruling BJP to digress from the main issues. "It's one of the BJP's distraction strategies... The main issues in India are concentration of wealth, huge inequality in wealth, massive unemployment, huge unfairness towards the lower caste, towards OBCs, and towards tribal communities. These are issues,” he said.
“Now, BJP can't contest those. So let's have Bidhuri make a statement. Let's get together and sort of have elections together. Let's change the name of India. This is all a distraction. We understand it. And we're not going to let them do it,” he added.