Taking a swipe at the Congress presidential elections, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician Sushil Kumar Modi said on Saturday that whoever becomes the party leader will be a “puppet” of the Gandhi family.
Talking to the media, Modi said: “Whether it is Mallikarjun Kharge or somebody else, whoever becomes the chief will only be a face to show and would be a puppet of the Gandhi family as the actual decisions will be taken by them only.”
Modi, a former state chief of Bihar, also lashed out at Shashi Tharoor whose election manifesto showed a “distorted map of India” as parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were missing from it.
He said that the way Tharoor presented the map of India with parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh missing reflects his mentality as such important regions of the country should not be excised from the map.
The BJP politician also hit out at Rahul Gandhi, who from 2017 to 2019 led Congress, and his policy of Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India Campaign), saying: “Which India is it that Rahul Gandhi is talking about uniting, India is already united. It is Congress Jodo Yatra [Unite Congress Campaign] that he wants as the party is breaking up.”
The last date for nominations for the election of Congress president was 30 September. The Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) Mallikarjun Kharge, senior politician Shashi Tharoor and former Jharkhand minister Keshari Nath Tripathi all submitted nominations.
On Saturday, Tripathi’s nomination was rejected by the party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry.
Kharge resigned as Opposition leader in the wake of filing his nomination, in line with party’s "one person, one post" rule.