The coming together of at least 19 opposition parties to protest against the disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Lok Sabha is an auspicious sign for the country, said Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday. Gehlot, who was earlier the Congress in-charge for Gujarat, was interacting with media in Ahmedabad.
Gandhi, who represented Wayanad constituency in the lower house, was disqualified as an MP following his conviction in a defamation case by a Surat court last week.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gehlot said democracy is under threat and nobody knows in which direction the country is heading. The prime minister has not answered a single question posed by Gandhi, he said.
The Congress veteran held that when Gandhi was speaking in Lok Sabha, his microphone was muted and what he spoke was expunged from the records. He asked why the BJP is demanding Gandhi's apology when he was not even allowed to speak.
The ruling party has been maintaining that Gandhi spoke against the country during his London visit and that he owes an apology to the nation. Gehlot, however, said the BJP is scared and was waiting for an opportunity. Gandhi had not said anything new that he had not spoken about earlier, he claimed.
The Rajasthan CM asked if there was nothing to hide, why Modi didn't come out clean on the allegations against him over the Adani issue. He also sought to know why the government was not agreeing to a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the issue.
“Even in Bofors, there was a JPC,” he recalled.
Responding to BJP president J.P. Nadda’s comment that Gandhi's remark (for which he was convicted) was an insult to the OBC communities, Gehlot referred to himself and said it was the Congress which made a person from the OBC the chief minister of Rajasthan thrice.
He further asked whether the OBC communities, who gave two terms to Modi, would be upset with what is happening in the country.
