Congress is going to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat Assembly polls the "way it did in Ayodhya", said Rahul Gandhi on Saturday. Gandhi, who is on a day long visit to Ahmedabad, claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya, but did not do so because his "surveyors said he will be defeated and his political career will end."
"They have challenged us. Now, we will defeat Modi and the BJP in Gujarat. We will not fear them or scare them. They broke into out office. That is the opportunity for us to show them what we are capable of," Gandhi, who is Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, said while addressing Congress workers in Gujarat.
His visit comes days after a clash ensued between Congress and BJP workers outside the Gujarat Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, purportedly triggered by the MP’s alleged ‘anti-Hindu’ remarks in his Parliament speech.
Gandhi started his address to party workers by mentioning his Parliament speech which created an uproar in the Lok Sabha. The Congress leader said that Opposition's INDIA bloc has 'defeated' the BJP's movement based on the Ram Temple, that was started by veteran politician Lal Krishan Advani in Ayodhya.
"The farmers of Ayodhya lost their land when the Airport was built. The people of Ayodhya were upset that no one from Ayodhya was invited to the inauguration of the Ram Temple... The movement which was started by Advani Ji, whose centre was Ayodhya, INDIA bloc has defeated that movement in Ayodhya...PM Modi wanted to contest Lok Sabha poll from Ayodhya, but his surveyors said he will be defeated and his political career will end," he said.
"The movement of BJP was based on Ram Mandir. It was started by (LK) Advani and he held a rath yatra in which Modi ji helped him. I was thinking, they (BJP) inaugurated Ram Mandir and in the event, we saw Adani ji, Ambani ji but no poor people were there," Gandhi added.
Meanwhile, the five Congress workers arrested in a rioting case were remanded in judicial custody in Ahmedabad, hours before Gandhi arrived there on a daylong visit. Incidentally, Gandhi was supposed to meet them at Vasna police station in the city, where they were lodged, but police produced them in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate BG Rathod in the morning at the end of their police remand. The five have been shifted to Sabarmati central jail, Vasna police station inspector Rahul Patel said.
During his visit today, Gandhi is also set to meet the family members of those who lost their lives in various tragedies in Gujarat in the recent past, including the Rajkot game zone fire, the boat capsize incident in Vadodara and Morbi bridge collapse.