The Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections are in their last leg now. The 6th phase of voting has just concluded and the 7th phase is scheduled for 7th March. With result day only days away (10th March), Congress scion Rahul Gandhi seems to be making a last-ditch effort to garner some residual votes by lying through his teeth and dragging in Hinduism to make his lies seem elaborate.
While the Uttar Pradesh Elections are on, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are already on a temple run. Hours before PM Modi was supposed to pray at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Rahul and Priyanka reached there as a part of their seasonal-Hindu program.
However, right after visiting the temple, Rahul Gandhi peddled a long-debunked lie against PM Modi and dragged in Hinduism to provide more impact to his lie. Speaking in Varanasi, Rahul Gandhi repeated the “Rs 15 lakh” lie.
He said, “Never seen a religion telling you to lie, let alone Hinduism…I’ll die but never tell you that I’ll deposit Rs 15 Lakh to your accounts…I respect you enough to not lie to you. Modi Ji lies&says he protects Hinduism; no, he protects lies”.
#WATCH | Varanasi | Never seen a religion telling you to lie, let alone Hinduism…I’ll die but never tell you that I’ll deposit Rs 15 Lakh to your accounts…I respect you enough to not lie to you. Modi Ji lies&says he protects Hinduism; no, he protects lies: Rahul Gandhi(04.03) pic.twitter.com/npxw476nnp
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) March 5, 2022
In the past 7 years, the lie about PM Modi promising the deposit of Rs 15 lakhs in every citizen’s account has been repeated over and over by various political opponents of PM Narendra Modi.
However, this assertion is just that – a lie.
The speech that Rahul Gandhi is now lying about is from the 7th of November 2013 when PM Modi was addressing a public rally in Chhattisgarh.
While speaking about Black Money stashed abroad, Modi said rhetorically that the amount stashed abroad is so large that if the Indian government could succeed in bringing back all of that, then every citizen would get 15 lakh rupees in their account.
Modi said, “The whole world says that crooks in India deposit their money in banks abroad. Black money is hoarded abroad in banks. My brothers and sisters of Kanker, tell me, this stolen money should be brought back or not? Should we take back every penny hoarded by these crooks? Doesn’t the public have a right over this money? Should this money not be utilized for the welfare of the people? If even once, the money hoarded by these crooks in banks abroad, even if we bring only that back, every poor Indian would get free of cost Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakhs, just like that. There’s so much money.”
Quite clearly, Narendra Modi was making a rhetorical point about the amount of black money stashed abroad and was hinting at the strict measures his government would take when it came to power. He was not actually promising to deliver 15 lakh rupees to every citizen’s account.
This lie has been repeated ad nauseam before every election and other occasions as well by politicians of the Congress party, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra despite facts being put to the fore several times.
In this occasion, Rahul Gandhi did not only peddle this lie but also dragged Hinduism to give his lie more heft, in his mind.
He said that Narendra Modi claims to protect Hinduism but he lies and that no religion teaches to lie. There was essentially no need to drag in Hinduism into the discourse in a political speech targeting a political opponent. Ironically, Rahul Gandhi said that those who protect Hinduism don’t lie and goes on to lie, thereby admitting that he is the last person who can protect Hinduism.
This is not the first time that Rahul Gandhi has dragged in Hinduism for no apparent reason. Recently, Rahul Gandhi had blamed Hindutva for inflation.
He had started off with a lot of philosophy saying that two ‘jeevs’ cannot have one ‘aatma’. He then asked the rhetorical question to the stunned audience whether two lives can have the same soul. When he did not get an answer, he answered it himself and said how two words don’t have the same meaning. After a lot of buildups, he said that the two words he was speaking about ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hindutvawadi’. The rally was to protest against inflation and high prices, but somehow, Rahul Gandhi thought this was the perfect time to talk about Hindu and Hindutva.
