PM lacks courage to confront Donald Trump over claims that US stopped India-Pak conflict: Rahul

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi lacks the courage to confront US President Donald Trump over America’s assertion that it stopped the India-Pakistan conflict.

Addressing poll rallies in Nalanda and Sheikhpura, Gandhi alleged that Bihar has now become synonymous with paper leaks and poor health infrastructure.

“The US President has asserted several times that it was because of him the conflict between India and Pakistan stopped after Operation Sindoor... But, our prime minister does not have the courage to confront Trump, say that he is lying. Modi was supposed to visit the US... but he is not going because he is scared of Trump,” he claimed.

“If the PM has the courage, let him say that Trump did not stop Operation Sindoor. He should speak about it in his rallies in Bihar,” Gandhi said.

Recalling the tenure of his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, he said the former prime minister was an example of a courageous leader. ''If you want to understand what a PM should be like, you should look at what Indira Gandhi did in 1971 when she had told the then US president, ‘we are not afraid of you’. She was a courageous leader,” the Congress leader said.

Criticising Home Minister Amit Shah for his comments that “there is no land available in Bihar”, Gandhi alleged that “plots were given to an industrial house at throwaway prices” by the state government.

But, corporates “close to Modi cannot provide jobs to the youth of Bihar”, the former Congress chief asserted at the Sheikhpura rally.

Gandhi said he wanted to see the ‘Made in Bihar’ tag on the back of mobile phones and other devices, instead of the ‘Made in China’ phrase, “but Modi is not capable of making that happen”. He said that Modi had, in one of his Bihar rallies, said the BJP reduced the cost of internet data, “but the truth is the money from your reels goes into the pockets of one or two corporates”.

“The NDA formed government through 'vote chori' during the last Lok Sabha election... Now, the NDA and the PM are hell bent on destroying the Constitution framed by Bhimrao Ambedkar,” he claimed.

“This Constitution is the voice of Hindustan... but the BJP-RSS people want to destroy it. Whatever you have received as rights are gifts of this Constitution. The people of Bihar should ensure that no one can demolish the Constitution,” Gandhi asserted.

Gandhi also hit out at the PM for observing Chhath Puja festivities in a ''specially made'' pond, while devotees offered prayers in “a polluted Yamuna”.

''I will ask the people of the state to give up the illusion that the government is run by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. It is a government operated via remote control by Modi-Shah and Nagpur (RSS headquarters), which does not care for Bihar,'' he alleged.

''Two Indias have now emerged – one belongs to the common people, and the other to a few corporates and Modi. This is the reason why places like Bihar suffer in poverty,'' Gandhi said.

The Congress leader said that if the INDIA bloc is voted to power in Bihar, it will be a government of the farmers, labourers, dalits and the weaker sections, with representation from all the communities.

“It is because of the anti-labour policies of the Centre and the Bihar government that the youth go to other states for employment. If the INDIA bloc comes to power, Bihar will not remain a state that only supplies labourers,” he said.

“The world's best university will also come up in Nalanda if we are voted to power,” Gandhi added.