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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said the results of the general elections in India this summer destroyed the "idea of Modi" and the "fear" created by the prime minister vanished, becoming "history".
The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha is currently on a four-day visit to the United States. He addressed the prestigious Georgetown University and another event in Herndon, a Virginia suburb of Washington DC on Monday.
Addressing the event, Gandhi said the Lok Sabha elections were not fought on a level playing field and claimed that the ruling coalition led by the BJP had collapsed, breaking "right down the middle".
Asserting that things have changed after the Lok Sabha results were announced, Gandhi said, "The fear created by Modiji vanished in a second. It took years to cultivate that fear, a lot of planning and money was involved but it took only a second for it to evaporate."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed a government for the third consecutive time after the Lok Sabha elections this year, however, the BJP did not get a majority on its own.
"I can tell you that the idea of Mr Modi-- 56-inch chest, direct connection with God -- that's all gone, its history now," Gandhi said.
He also claimed the ruling coalition had collapsed and was broken "right down the middle".
“It's not just the prime minister, it's deeper than that. What has happened in India is that the coalition that brought Mr Modi to power has collapsed. It's broken right down the middle," he said.
"So you'll see in these elections that they will struggle. Because the basic idea that Mr Modi is running a government for the people of India is gone,” he added.
Alleging that the Lok Sabha elections were not fought on the same footing, Gandhi said, "I don't see it as a free election. I see it as a heavily controlled election."
"I don't believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 246 seats. I would be surprised," he said, asserting that the party had a "huge financial advantage".
"The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr Modi could carry out his agenda across the country, with different designs for different states," Gandhi claimed.
"The Congress party fought the elections with their bank accounts frozen and has basically destroyed the idea of Modi. You can see it because when you see the prime minister now in Parliament...he is psychologically trapped, and he basically cannot come to terms, he cannot understand how this has happened," he said.
Responding to a question, Gandhi said that halfway through the campaign, Prime Minister Modi didn't think he would get anywhere near 300 or 400 seats.
“I think early on he realised that this thing's going wrong. We were getting inputs from regular sources...It was pretty clear that they were in trouble,” he said.
“So, there was this internal thing going on in the prime minister that I could see. And psychologically, how is this now happening? Because he's a person, as you know, he was in Gujarat for many years, never faced political adversity, then prime minister of India. Suddenly, this idea started to crack,” Gandhi said.
“We knew. When he said that I speak directly to God, we knew that we had actually blown him apart. And that the psychology had gone. So people think that, well, this was the prime minister sort of saying that, look, 'I'm special, I'm unique, and I talk to God'. But that's not how we saw it. Internally, we saw it as a psychological collapse, what happened here? How is this thing not working?” he said.
"Now that idea has been replaced," he said.
While talking to students at the prestigious Georgetown University, Rahul said that the Congress Party will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place, which is not the case right now.
"We will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place. And India is not a fair place," Gandhi told students at the university in Washington, DC in response to a question on reservation and how long it would continue.
"When you look at the financial numbers, then tribals get 10 paise out of 100 rupees; Dalits get 5 rupees out of 100 rupees, and OBCs get a similar number. The fact of the matter is that they're not getting participation," Gandhi said.
"The problem is that 90 per cent of India is not able to play. Go through the list of every single business leader in India. I've done it. Show me the tribal name. Show me the Dalit name. Show me the OBC name. Out of the top 200, I think there's one OBC. They're 50 per cent of India. But we're not treating the symptom," he said.
"That's the problem. Now, it (reservation) is not the only tool. There are other tools," he said.
"There are many people who come from the upper caste who say, look, what have we done wrong? Why are we being punished? So, then you think about increasing dramatically the supply of some of these things. You think about decentralising power. You think about involving many more people in the governance of our country. You think of opening up. With all due respect, I don't think any of you are ever going to become Adani or Ambani. There's a reason for that. You can't. Because those doors are closed. So the answer to people in the general cast is you open those doors," Gandhi said.
When asked about the Uniform Civil Code, Gandhi said he would comment on it only after he knows what is BJP's proposal.
"The BJP is proposing a uniform civil code. We haven't seen it. We have no idea what they're talking about. For us to comment on it doesn't make sense. When they pull it out, then we'll have a look and we'll comment on it," he said.
Gandhi also said members of the INDIA coalition had differences but agreed on a lot of things.
“We agree that the Constitution of India should be defended. Most of us agree on the idea of the caste census. We agree that two businesspeople, namely Adani and Ambani, shouldn't run every single business in India. So, for you to say that we don't agree, I think, is inaccurate,” he said.
“Second thing is that all coalitions... A certain amount of to and fro will always take place. That is perfectly natural. There's nothing wrong with it. We have run governments again and again which have been successful using coalitions. So we are pretty confident that we can do it again,” he said.
Gandhi, who arrived in the US on Saturday, interacted with members of the Indian diaspora and youths in Dallas, Texas. He also plans to meet lawmakers and senior officials of the US government in Washington DC.