Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said in Europe on Friday that there is a “full-scale assault” on the democratic institutions of India.
While interacting with international media at Brussels Press Club in Belgium, Gandhi said, “The democratic structures of the country, the institutional structures of our country are under attack from a group of people who are running India. I don’t think this point is missed by anybody.”
The Wayanad MP is on a three-nation European tour to Belgium, France and Norway. He started his tour from Belgium and held closed-door meetings with some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in Brussels on Thursday.
Gandhi further said, “There is an increase in discrimination and violence in India and there is a full-scale assault on the democratic institutions of our country, that everybody knows. And internally in India and globally it is commented on. Of course, minorities are under attack, but so are many other communities – Dalits, tribals as well as lower caste communities.”
“There is an attempt to change the nature of our country, which the Constitution defines as a Union of States and we believe that the most critical aspect of our Union is the conversation between members of our Union. There is an alternative vision, which is the BJP vision, which believes that the power should be centralised, power and wealth should be concentrated, and the conversation between the members of the Union and the people of India be suppressed.
“This is the fight between two visions. I like to term it as a fight between Mahatma Gandhi’s vision and Nathuram Godse’s vision. Nathuram Godse being the person who assassinated our leader,” he says.
Meanwhile, on Congress president and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge not being invited to the G20 dinner to be hosted by President Droupadi Murmu, Gandhi accused the Modi-led BJP government of not valuing leaders representing 60 per cent of India’s population.
The President of India is set to host a gala dinner on Saturday at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, which is the venue of G20 summit of world leaders.
“They have decided not to invite the Leader of Opposition. It tells you that they don’t value the leader of 60 per cent of India’s population. It is something that people should think about why they are feeling the need to do that and what is the type of thinking that goes behind that,” he said.