Published By: Saurabh Verma
Last Updated: November 22, 2023, 21:21 IST
Sachin Pilot has been involved in a power tussle with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the prime minister has been referring to it in his poll campaign. (PTI file)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said, “Rajesh Pilot ji had once challenged this Congress family for good, but this family is such that after punishing Rajesh ji, they are bent upon punishing his son also”
The Congress on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “unleashing another pack of lies” after he alleged that it “punished” Rajesh Pilot and his son Sachin Pilot for speaking the truth.
Addressing a public meeting in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said, “Rajesh Pilot ji had once challenged this Congress family for good, but this family is such that after punishing Rajesh ji, they are bent upon punishing his son also”.
He alleged that anyone who speaks the truth in the Congress is shunted out from politics and apparently suggested that Rajesh Pilot lost favour with the Congress leadership after contesting against Sitaram Kesri for the party president’s post in 1997. Reacting to it, AICC spokesperson and chairman of the media department Pawan Khera said, “The prime minister’s lies stand exposed today in Bhilwara”.
“Today, Narendra Modi while continuing the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jhooth Bolo scheme’ in a fit of panic unleashed another pack of lies,” he alleged in a statement. Khera said that the late Rajesh Pilot was inspired by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and left his job in the Indian Air Force to enter politics.
“He was not only a senior leader of the Congress, he always fought against the communal forces in this country. Late Pilot ji contested the election of Congress President against late Sitaram Kesari under the democratic traditions of Congress. “The prime minister, due to his incomplete knowledge, forgot that at that time Sonia Gandhi was not in active politics. Nor was any other member of the Gandhi family in politics at that time,” the Congress leader said.
He added that Rajesh Pilot served this country by holding many positions in the party and government. “His capable son Sachin Pilot was not only a minister at the Centre but also the president of Rajasthan Congress and then deputy chief minister.
“Today he is a member of the Congress Working Committee and remains actively involved in election campaigning and other party programmes throughout the country. “Modi ji, instead of serving lies about late Rajesh Pilot and the Congress party, today you should have apologised to the Gurjar community whose 72 youths were killed in the Gurjar movement during the BJP rule,” Khera said.
Sachin Pilot has been involved in a power tussle with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the prime minister has been referring to it in his poll campaign. Pilot was removed as deputy chief minister after a revolt in July 2020. The Congress has however tried to project that it is united in the state.
At the election rally on Wednesday, Modi said, “Whoever said or spoke anything in front of the Congress family…is as good as finished.”
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
