‘INDIA’ will rout BJP in LS polls, Congress to repeat Karnataka win in ensuing state elections: Rahul

Mumbai: Asserting that the INDIA alliance will defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in national elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said his party will replicate its win in Karnataka in poll-bound Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

Addressing party workers at the Maharashtra Congress office at Tilak Bhavan in Mumbai, Gandhi claimed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP are “scared” of the country’s oldest political outfit.

“People in the media said the Congress party does not have strength, but who defeated the BJP in Karnataka?” Gandhi said, referring to his party’s resounding victory in the assembly polls in the southern state held in May this year.

“Whatever happened in Karnataka will happen in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh (where assembly polls are due in next few months). The INDIA alliance is going to defeat the BJP in national elections and the Congress party will win the polls,” he said.

The Congress MP said his party did not split in Maharashtra because it is based on ideology.

The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), both allies of the Congress, saw splits in their ranks in the state in the last one year with sections of their MLAs joining hands with the BJP.

The former Congress president asserted the BJP will be wiped out in Maharashtra, which at 48, sends the second largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Gandhi was in Mumbai to take part in the two-day conclave of the opposition bloc Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).