NEW DELHI:
After Congress fielded Rahul Gandhi from the Raebareli seat in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday took a jibe at the opposition party, saying he had earlier predicted that the Gandhi scion would run away and look for a safe seat after polling in Wayanad is over.
Without naming Rahul Gandhi who is the sitting MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, the Prime Minister asked him “not to get scared and run away”.
The Prime Minister also criticised Sonia Gandhi for taking the Rajya Sabha route to enter Parliament and not contesting Lok Sabha elections.
While addressing a public rally in West Bengal’s Bardhaman-Durgapur, PM Modi said, “I had already said in the Parliament that their (Congress) biggest leader will not dare to fight elections and she will run away. She ran away to Rajasthan and came to the Rajya Sabha… I had already said that the Shehzada was going to lose in Wayanad. I had said that as soon as the polling was completed in Wayanad, he would start looking for another seat… He is so scared of Amethi that he is running towards Raebareli. They ask everyone ‘Daro Mat’. Today, I also ask them, ‘Daro Mat, Bhago Mat’…”
Earlier today, Congress announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest from Raebareli, a seat represented by his mother Sonia Gandhi for four terms until she was elected to Rajya Sabha this year. The party’s decision came on the last day for nomination filing by candidates for the prestigious seat.
In its eleventh-hour decision, the Congress fielded Kishori Lal Sharma against Union Minister Smriti Irani in Amethi, where the Gandhi scion suffered defeat in the 2019 elections.
