PM Narendra Modi defamed India in his trips abroad and he “does not understand the threat from China”, Rahul Gandhi said Saturday in a stinging riposte to BJP’s swipe at the Congress MP that he had belittled the country in his Cambridge lecture.
Also, Rahul said he is “confident and optimistic” that the opposition will unite and “do very well” in the 2024 general elections as he could see “a lot of anger against BJP”.
Speaking at an Indian Journalists’ Association (UK) event in London, Rahul dismissed BJP’s criticism that he had defamed the country in the lecture he gave to students at Cambridge last week, in which he alleged Indian intelligence services are spying on him and India’s democracy is under attack.
He said BJP likes to twist what he says and the media plays it up, “but the fact of the matter is the person who defames India when he goes abroad is the Prime Minister of India”.
“There is nothing defaming India in my Cambridge lecture. Last I recall the Prime Minister going abroad and announcing that there had been nothing done in 70 years of India’s independence. He said there is a lost decade of 10 years…there is unlimited corruption in India. I remember him saying it abroad. These were not things he said in India. I have never defamed my country. I am not interested in it and I will never do it,” Rahul said.