Ahmedabad, Apr 9 (PTI) Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda on Wednesday said party leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, taken out ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year, played a key role in stopping the BJP from achieving its ambitious target of winning more than 400 seats.
Pushing for a caste census, he said, the party, a key constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc, will organise a serious of programmes to put pressure on the Centre to carry out the nation-wide exercise.
Accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of practicing ‘pseudo nationalism’, the Lok Sabha MP from Rohtak in Haryana insisted the saffron outfit’s idea of ‘Rashtrawad’ was nothing but ‘Kursivad’, meant only to acquire power.
“Because of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra undertaken by Rahul Gandhi ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP could not cross the 400-mark and was confined to only 240 seats. This yatra also played a key role in increasing the seat tally of opposition parties (INDIA bloc),” said Hooda at a press conference in Ahmedabad.
Hooda, a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s apex decision-making body, was addressing the press conference during the AICC Session which is taking place in Gujarat after six decades.
He emphasised the 63-day-long yatra was a symbol of Congress’ ideology and that idea will be carried forward in some other form by the opposition party in coming days.
Spanning east and west of India, the yatra started on January, 14 2024, from strife-torn Manipur and ended on March 16, 2024, in Mumbai, just one month ahead of the multi-phase Lok Sabha polls which started on April 19.
Hooda said a resolution on nationalism was discussed at a CWC meeting held on Tuesday and it will be adopted at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session on Wednesday.
“There will be a resolution on nationalism during this session because we believe that for the BJP, nationalism or ‘Rashtrawad’ is only ‘Kursivad’, a nationalism meant only to acquire power,” asserted the Lok Sabha member.
“They talk about nationalism just to acquire power. That’s why we call this pseudo nationalism. Everyone knows people of all castes and religions are citizens of this country. But the BJP does politics and creates differences among them. Because for the BJP, power is more important than the country,” the Congress MP alleged, hitting out at the saffron outfit.
The resolution will shed more light on Congress’ version of nationalism, he added.
Hooda informed the media that during the CWC meet on Tuesday, there was a detailed discussion on the importance of having a caste census to ensure social justice.
“Rahul Gandhi has emerged as the flag-bearer of social justice and he is leading this moment. We will organise different programmes across the country to demand a caste census,” the Congress averred. PTI PJT PD RSY
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