Hyderabad: BJP Telangana State president N. Ramchander Rao on Sunday demanded an unconditional apology from Rahul Gandhi over the Bharat Summit. Rao accused Gandhi of bringing anti-national forces onto Indian soil and insulting Indian democracy. He said BJP Telangana would file complaints with the appropriate forums against every participant who made anti-national remarks.
Ramchander Rao spoke as chief guest at the Telangana BJP All Wings (All Cells) meeting at the State party office. He said Union Home Minister Amit Shah also gives high priority to the effective functioning of party cells.
According to Ramchander Rao, the BJP has 22 officially recognised cells nationally. States can add five to six more depending on their needs, he said.
He urged cells representing ex-servicemen, advocates, traders, IT professionals, social media, teachers, educationists, doctors and cultural groups to expand their outreach. They should connect professionals and intellectuals from all sections of society with the party, he said. He also asked them to engage with people and help resolve public issues.
Ramchander Rao said cell conveners matter as much as other office bearers. He himself once served as Joint Convener of the Legal Cell, he recalled. Meanwhile, with the MLC elections ahead, he directed cell members to speed up voter enrolment drives. He said this followed instructions from Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and BJP National General Secretary (Organization) B.L. Santhosh.
Ramchander Rao calls Italian delegate’s remark at Bharat Summit an insult to India
Turning to the summit, Ramchander Rao said no gig workers were visible at the Congress-organised event. He alleged the party held it in the name of an investment summit and brought in only its own workers.
Ramchander Rao strongly objected to foreigners interfering in India’s internal politics. He said an Italian delegate’s description of Indian democracy as “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chor” (Vote Thief, Throne Thief) insulted the country’s sovereignty.
Countries like America never allow foreigners to speak on their internal politics, Ramchander Rao said. He alleged that Gandhi had earlier insulted India abroad by calling it a ‘dead economy’. Now, Ramchander Rao said, Gandhi had invited foreigners to speak against the country on Indian soil, which he called purely an act of treason. Ramchander Rao warned that anyone speaking against India would not be tolerated under any circumstances.
He said the summit was to host 350 foreign delegates, but only 115 attended. Ramchander Rao backed the Centre’s last-minute cancellation of visas for the rest as an entirely right decision. Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng, who he said had written anti-India articles, was among them.
He also asked whether Shashi Tharoor and Congress leaders had forgotten an old episode. When Narendra Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister, 63 Congress MPs signed a letter urging the US President to deny him a visa, Ramchander Rao said.
Ramchander Rao further alleged that the summit hosted representatives of ‘Progressive Alliance’ and ‘Progressive International’. He claimed George Soros’s Open Society Foundations funds both groups and said Soros had openly vowed to topple nationalist governments worldwide.
Ramchander Rao alleges Soros links, calls Congress the real ‘Vote Chor’
Citing what he presented as evidence, he named Patrick Gaspard, former President of Open Society Foundations, and Guillaume Long, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador. He also named Nika Kovač, founder of Slovenia’s ‘Institute 8 March’, which he said Soros organisations fund, and former Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. Ramchander Rao alleged that all of them are linked to the Soros network.
He warned that, as at the Global Progressive Mobilization in Barcelona, these groups were conspiring to stir unrest in India. He alleged they wanted to fuel student protests worldwide and bring about regime change.
Ramchander Rao rejected Rahul Gandhi’s claim that India has had no democracy since 2014. Instead, he alleged, the Congress itself is the ‘Vote Chor’ and ‘Samvidhan Chor’ in the country.
According to Ramchander Rao, the first vote theft came soon after independence, when Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister despite Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel having the highest support. He said Indira Gandhi split the Congress in 1969 for family power. In 1973, she bypassed senior Supreme Court judges to appoint judges of her choice, he added.
In 1975, he said, she imposed the Emergency and jailed lakhs of people, including Jayaprakash Narayan, Nanaji Deshmukh, Vajpayee and Advani. She trampled the Constitution in the name of a “committed judiciary, committed bureaucracy and committed press”, Rao alleged.
He also accused the Congress of humiliating BC leader and party president Sitaram Kesri. The party locked him in a room and removed him from his post, Ramchander Rao said.
In contrast, he recalled that P.V. Narasimha Rao, as Prime Minister, sent opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the United Nations. Vajpayee’s task was to voice India’s stand on Kashmir. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh never spoke abroad in a way that lowered India’s prestige, he added.