A chappal was thrown at Narendra Modi’s car in Varanasi during his first visit to Varanasi following his election victory from the constituency, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed on Thursday, citing it as proof that people are no longer ‘scared’ of the prime minister.
The Telegraph Online had reported on Wednesday evening that during Modi’s visit to Varanasi a day before, an unidentified object was hurled at his car, which was retrieved by a member of his security detail and thrown into the crowd.
A senior Uttar Pradesh police official, speaking on the strict condition of anonymity for obvious reasons, had said that the object that had been thrown “unintentionally” was not a slipper, but a mobile phone that had landed on the bonnet of the PM’s car.
The security breach, on which there has been no official statement yet, was recorded on mobile phones, presumably by bystanders, and shared widely on social media platforms.
“Modi’s idea of running a government is to generate fear, to frighten people, to make people not speak,” Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday at a media briefing on the crisis in the higher education sector following the controversies over the NEET and UGC-NET exams.
“And you saw the other day, someone in Varanasi threw a chappal at his car. So it is very clear the basic concept of Modi has been destroyed in this election,” the Congress leader said.
He said the prime minister was more worried about securing the future of the NDA government than about the students of India.
“The PM is crippled,” Rahul declared. “He is bothered about the Speaker [the election for which will be held on June 26]. He is bothered [that] my government should survive and I get the Speaker of my choice. He is not worried about NEET, etc. That is where his mind is right now.
“The PM, if I might say so, is psychologically broken, he has collapsed psychologically,” Rahul said. “And knowing his personality, [he] will find it difficult to run a government.”
Prime ministers such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh could negotiate the tricky punches of coalition politics because they had humility, conciliation and respect for others, he said.
“Narendra Modi does not believe in any of these things, it is either his way or the highway, Earlier only the Congress people were not scared of him [Modi]. Now nobody in the country is scared of him. Psychologically it is a fatal blow for the PM and he is really going to struggle,” he added.
Citing the gain in the Opposition’s numbers in the Lok Sabha, the MP from Rae Bareli – who could have his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, by his side in the Lok Sabha if Wayanad elects her – said parliamentary politics in the coming days would be “interesting and fun”.