Things got heated after Gandhi put it out there: ‘the Modi government will fall in the next one year’. The BJP has made much of this, saying it is meant to erode our democratic institutions. Union minister Piyush Goyal has even put forward the charge of a ‘serious plot to spread anarchy’, in what is already a tense standoff given the students’ fury over the NEET UG issue.
What Rahul Gandhi said
At a get-together of the Congress minority advisory committee, the Leader of the Opposition made his case that the government would be brought down by the kind of economic unease we are seeing. He was at pains to point out that people’s frustration is only mounting, and it is tied to their day-to-day lives.
Imran Masood of the Congress, on the same stage, wanted to see a change in the way we talk about the Muslim vote and made a point of the work the party has done to put the community’s success in the spotlight.
Reaction from government leaders
For Piyush Goyal, the Congress and its allies are out to make the country unstable. He has no doubt it is a ‘major conspiracy’ born of the fact they can’t seem to put the BJP down at the polls.
Goyal says the opposition is trying to ‘incite violence across the country’ because they have not been able to best Narendra Modi in a fair fight. On top of that, he has them down for running India down overseas and looking for outside hands in our own business.
He has full faith in the public to see through it. The ‘toolkit gang’ will be put in their place once more, he said, and the INDI alliance won’t be able to ‘set India ablaze’. In Goyal’s view, this is less about an election and more a question of national security.
Opposition rhetoric and past remarks
Sambit Patra of the BJP put out a video to say that Rahul Gandhi has been at it again with some provocation. He harked back to the comment from the meeting about the government’s days being numbered to show how the Congress leader has a way with extreme words.
Patra also brought up 2019, when it was said Gandhi told folks they should ‘come out on the streets and beat Prime Minister Modi with sticks’. And he remembered the PM’s retort in Parliament: he would just do a bit more yoga and pranayama to ‘strengthen his back’.
Then you have Pradeep Bhandari, who has been having some fun with it online, asking what exactly Gandhi is ‘high on’ these days after his time in foreign lands. He says the Congress has ‘lost 99 elections’ and the humiliation is plain to see.
In Bhandari’s opinion, the further Gandhi is from India, the more his words lose touch with reality. As for 2029, he is sure the NDA will be back in the saddle ‘with a thumping mandate’.
Protests backdrop: NEET UG row
All of this comes as Gandhi has been laddering up to the Youth Congress on the NEET UG paper leak. On X, he put the onus on the government for its silence and called for Dharmendra Pradhan to step down.
He put up a clip from Rajasthan and said the BJP in the states were ‘raining lathis’ on the young ones. Then he made a comparison between the pain of the students and the PM with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni: ‘Modi ji was making reels while handing out candies in Italy’.
The leak has cost ‘lakhs of students’ their future, he said, and ‘many children have even lost their lives’. His word on it: ‘We will not stop until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns and we have a system in place to put a stop to these leaks.’
Key claims at a glance
A few of the main points in the tussle so far:
– Gandhi puts the government’s end within a year.
– Goyal sees a ‘plot to spread anarchy’.
– Patra makes a point of the 2019 ‘sticks’ comment.
– The Congress ties the anger to the economy and NEET UG.
– A call for Pradhan to go.
Why this matters now
With Gandhi giving a date for the government’s undoing, the economy and how we are governed are once more in the limelight. The BJP’s answer is to put it in terms of stability and respect for our institutions, and to call the whole thing anti-national.
You have the students in the mix, which gives the argument some teeth. For the BJP it is proof the opposition will use any means to win; for the Congress, it is about holding the line on public hardship.
What to watch next
It will be interesting to see if the Congress can keep up the pressure on the economic and student front, and how hard the BJP will come down on the idea of a destabilisation plot. What happens here could well set the tone for the next time around in Parliament and in the country at large.
