“Mayawati is a national symbol, I respect her, love her: Rahul
NEW DELHI : Congress President Rahul Gandhi has said that among a number of people he learns from is also the Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi.
In an interview with NDTV’s Ravish Kumar, a smiling Rahul took a swipe at the prime minister, saying, Modi showed him how not to run a country. “Narendra Modi-Ji has shown me how not to run a country. If you run the country without listening to what its people have to say, then the country will not function properly,” he said. Rahul once again acknowledged there was no match to Modi’s “communication skills.”
Despite the frequent brickbats from Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati amid the ongoing election season, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday told TV Channel that he “respected her contribution to the country” and considered her “a national symbol”.
“Mayawati is a national symbol. She may not be from our party, she is from the BSP. But she has given a message to the country. I respect her, love her. Sure we have a political fight and we fight for the ideology of the Congress… (but) I respect her contribution to the country,” Mr Gandhi said in an interview.
When asked if there was any problem between him and BSP supremo Mayawati, Rahul said she was a national symbol and he loved her.”Mayawati is a national symbol. She may not be from our party, she is from the BSP. But she has given a message to the country. I respect her, love her. Sure we have a political fight and we fight for the ideology of the Congress… (but) I respect her contribution to the country,” Rahul told the channel.
During the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Rahul and Mayawati have often traded barbs after the Congress and the SP-BSP-RLD failed to forge an alliance in Uttar Pradesh.Mayawati, an influential leader of the Dalit community in Uttar Pradesh, has mounted several attacks on the Congress in the run up to the elections and continues to do so, going so far at one point to call the party “a snake” that is as bad as the BJP.
Just today, she criticised the Congress government in Rajasthan over the gang-rape of a Dalit woman on April 26, saying, “[They] suppressed this incident till the end of election in Rajasthan to preserve their political benefits and threatened the family of the victim to keep quiet about it.”
Mayawati had earlier been furious with the Congress after a candidate from her party had switched sides in Madhya Pradesh, threatening to pull support from the Kamal Nath government, which has a wafer-thin majority.
The alliance between Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh – which sends the largest number of lawmakers to parliament – is seen as a challenge to the BJP, which won 71 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. The Congress’s solo run in the game – after being denied entry in the alliance team – is seen to dent the chances of the opposition coalition by splitting the anti-BJP vote.(With Agency Reports ).
