Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | Rahul Gandhi Responds To Prime Minister Narendra Modi | LS Polls | News18

But in fact, Rahul Gandhis own remark with regards to his grandmother, his father and how the system is aligned against the Obcs, That entire remark as far as prime ministers attack is concerned, we've seen how now Rahul Gandhi is reacting to it. Let's quickly go back to Pallavi. Pallavi, how would you now place this into perspective? Not to forget the fact that the Congress has also been highlighting that for a Prime Minister who's an OBC himself, he ought to be OK with the idea of going in for a caste. Well, I mean this has been the line again which has always been taken by the Congress party and the BJP is response to this, that the Prime Minister is that, you know as a Prime Minister, he doesn't talk only for one community. He may belong to the backward community, but as a Prime Minister, you have to think of the entire nation as one sabka, sabka vikas. Every policy, every scheme of the government has to be not keeping in mind only one particular community or vote bank. And therefore when any political party is pitching for one particular, for a community or for a religious community for that matter, Kansha, then that is being selective. That is also what is called polarization and being divisive in nature. That's the department which has always come in from the BJP. But its very clear again the same point as we head into the last two critical phases of elections, we are going to be seeing this fight over the OBC and the Dalit vote bank. It matters a lot in Haryana, in Punjab, in part of Delhi as well, right? And when we also talking about Congress being projected as being anti Dalit, let's not forget that that's also a standardized sort of attack that's coming in from the Bharatya Janta party where its not just labeled the Congress party as being anti Dalit but also pro Muslims. And how in fact that entire argument boards into this. The fact that they will be giving away OBC reservation and adding it on to the Muslim quota only goes on to show how the party is now also indulging into appeasement politics. 2014, 2019, when the Congress partys numbers started coming down, they had an internal survey done and internal survey told them that one of the many reasons why they lost out and have been performing so poorly is because of this perception that there are a minority appeasement party. And it's not that the minorities are voting for the Congress anymore. They have other bastions to go to like whether it's the SPTMT, so on and so forth. So this is a perception which is not helping and hurting the Congress. What did you see then Akansha? You saw the Congress going on a soft Hindutu agenda and that soft Hindutu agenda that meant that Rahul Gandhi would go to a temple and so on and so forth. And that is what is the dilemma within the Congress party. The Maya Milinda Ram is actually famously saved. Its not even won the minority votes. Its not even going to win the core Hindutva votes. And in fact, whatever is being the traditional base of the Congress party, that also has been eroding and has been going across to other political parties and many of them are regional parties as well. This is a concern, this is an apprehension, but you know in desperate time to seek desperate measures. And that's what I guess the Congress is trying to do absolutely. And perhaps not even doing much to shatter the kind of image that is now being built around the Grand Old Party. Many thanks to you Pallavi for bringing in all those inputs and sharing that perspective on.