Rahul Gandhi releases June 8 speech audio, claims allies underestimate BJP's hold on institutions

Rahul Gandhi, Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, on Friday released an audio recording of the speech he delivered at the June 8 I.N.D.I.A. bloc meeting in Delhi, in which he attacked the ruling BJP at the Centre, alleging that it had captured the country’s institutions and that any opposition party participating in the meeting must disabuse itself of the notion that India remains a democracy.

His speech followed scathing criticism by several constituents of the opposition alliance, who accused the Congress party of one-upmanship, taking unilateral decisions without consulting allies, and launching vitriolic attacks on members of the bloc during the recently held elections in four key states.

Gandhi Jr, who announced at the start of his speech that he would not respond to criticism of his party, claiming that he follows the Shiva tradition of swallowing all poison, added: “I'm sorry to say that there is confusion in this group. The confusion is that you, the SP (Samajwadi Party), the TMC (Trinamool Congress), the RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) believe that the political instruments you have used so far will still work. These only worked when the Indian state provided a fair field for them to operate in. That field does not exist anymore.”

Gandhi Jr then accused the BJP of controlling the institutions of the state. “The BJP controls the legal system. The BJP controls the bureaucracy. It controls the intelligence agencies. The BJP even controls the Election Commission. I have many friends in the TMC. They were convinced that they were sweeping the election in Bengal. I kept telling them, you're in dreamland. I have seen what happens. I have seen it in Gujarat. I have seen it in Madhya Pradesh. I have seen it in Chhattisgarh. I have seen it in Haryana and in Maharashtra. And yet many of you are still not convinced. The Congress party is a party of resistance.”

The Nehru-Gandhi scion also said that the Congress party is fundamentally different from the parties represented at the meeting. He went on: “And I say this with humility. Why? Because this party began as a resistance movement when modern India did not exist. Unlike all other parties, it was not built using the infrastructure and protection of the Indian state.”

Stating that the Congress party is fundamentally opposed to the vision of the RSS, he noted: “We will die in the Congress party before we stand with or compromise with the BJP or the RSS. You will have to cut off our heads to make it happen.” His statement was met with smiles at the meeting because many Congress leaders have joined the BJP over the past 12 years, prompting some pundits to argue that, for many leaders of the saffron party, the parent organisation is the Congress, not the RSS.

Rahul Gandhi also pledged in his speech to fight to defend the Constitution of India. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi and the sacrifices of the Indian National Congress during the freedom struggle, Gandhi Jr added: “The mindset has to change. The mindset must now be that we will not fight each other. We will not give the press a chance to attack us. We will resist. You're thinking that the challenge is winning the next election. The next election is already won. Please understand there is so much anger among the people of India that the next election is already over. The problem is the capture of the instruments of the Indian state by the RSS. The problem is that you will not have a free and fair election to win.”

He also said that the mission ahead for him and his allies was larger than politics. “This is a spiritual duty. … And that is why I promise you I will bear every single humiliation that I have to bear to knit this group together and make it succeed.”

In his speech, Gandhi Jr said, in an apparent reference to former Kerala chief minister and CPM leader Pinarayi Vijayan, whom he had accused of entering into an understanding with the BJP and whose party had lodged a complaint at the meeting: “If you're asking me to go and hug the ex-chief minister of Kerala, I cannot and I will not because I have an ongoing political fight with him.” He, however, said that he expected all opposition parties assembled at the Constitution Club of India for the meeting — and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which had boycotted it while accusing the Congress of betrayal — to defend the idea of India. The Communist Marxist Party of India (Marxist) had sharply attacked Gandhi for unfairly targeting Vijayan during the Kerala election campaign, before the meet and during the discussions there.