Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said that Adani and Ambani had “bought” some of the biggest politicians in the country but couldn’t buy her brother Rahul Gandhi.
“Adaniji, Ambaniji ne bade se bade neta khareed liye, desh ke sabhi PSU (public sector units) khareed liye, desh ki media khareed lee, lekin mere bhai ko naa khareed paye naa kabhi khareed payenge,” Priyanka said as she welcomed the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Ghaziabad as general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh.
A translation: “Adani and Ambani have bought some of the biggest politicians in the country, most of the PSUs and the media but could not buy my brother, nor will they be ever able to.”
Rahul, who didn’t speak, has ceaselessly been alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is controlled by Adani and Ambani and works for the two industrialists. He has alleged that Adani and Ambani, and not the Modi government, run the country.
Priyanka said she was proud of all the Bharat Yatris who had walked from Kanyakumari to Delhi and had now entered Uttar Pradesh.
“Idhar dekho mere bade bhai, sabse jyada garv tum par hai. Poora satta ka zor lagaya gaya, sarkar nein hazaro karor kharche inki chhavi ko kharab karne ke liye. Lekin yeh sacchai se peechhe hatey nahin. Inpe agenciyan lagai gai, yeh darey nahin. Yoddha hai,” she said.
(Look at my elder brother, object of the greatest pride. The government has employed its entire might, spent thousands of crores to spoil his image, but he never abandoned the path of truth. Agencies targeted him but he wasn’t scared. He is a true soldier).
Priyanka said: “Some people ask me, ‘Is your brother not feeling cold, he is walking in a T-shirt? Give him a jacket’. Somebody said, ‘Aren’t you worried about his security, the Yatra is now going towards Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir?’ My reply is, ‘Yeh satya ka kawach pahan kar chal rahe hain, Bhagwan inko surakshit rakhega (He wears the armour of truth, God will protect him).”
However, the Congress and the Gandhi family are indeed worried about Rahul’s security, with the massive crowds threatening safety protocols, particularly given that Indira Gandhi was killed by her own security guards and Rajiv Gandhi assassinated during a popular interaction in Tamil Nadu.
Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Yamuna Vihar in east Delhi on Tuesday PTI picture
The surging crowds and Rahul’s own desire to meet the highest possible number of people have resulted in breaches of the security protocol at several places. On Tuesday, too, he was found jostling with the crowd without a protective ring several times. The party has formally raised concerns about his security with Union home minister Amit Shah.
Any fears about the scale of the response to the Yatra in Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress has been a marginal player for decades, evaporated as soon as the walkathon entered the heartland state. A huge crowd was waiting at the Loni border, as were all the senior Congress leaders and office-bearers from the state.
Some party workers put the size of the crowd at over 1 lakh. People lined both sides of the roads for kilometres at a stretch, encouraging local Congress leaders to claim that Uttar Pradesh would eclipse the response the Yatra had received in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
All the three main Opposition leaders in the state — Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary — lauded the purpose of the Yatra and extended their good wishes. National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah joined the walk.
A.S. Dulat, former Intelligence Bureau special director, RAW ex-secretary and adviser to the Vajpayee government on Kashmir affairs, too participated as did author Ram Puniyani.