Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Congress is committed to ensure not a single person, regardless of their faith, language or state, is “harmed” by the RSS and the BJP, citing the importance of protecting the different languages of the country.

At a roadshow in Vellimunda in Kerala’s Wayanad from where he is seeking re-election, the Congress leader said: “Not a single person, regardless of his religion, regardless of his community, regardless of the language he speaks, regardless of where he lives, is going to be harmed by the RSS and the BJP.”

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP were pursuing their “one nation, one language, one leader” policy because of a lack of understanding of what India is. “He (Modi) does not understand the DNA of India,” Rahul said, citing it as the reason why Modi and his party were bent on homogenising the diversity of the nation.

“The Prime Minister does not understand our country. He says ‘one nation, one leader, one language’. What does he mean (by saying) one language? There are many languages in our country,” Rahul said.

“India is like a bouquet of flowers. You cannot look at the bouquet and say there are only going to be white flowers. Each flower gives a unique character to the bouquet. Each flower has a different smell. Each flower has a different colour. In the same way all our people have different religion, state, language, tradition. And that is exactly our strength,” he said.

Addressing a roadshow in Sultan Bathery earlier in the day, Rahul said that to tell a person from Kerala that their language is inferior to Hindi, for example, is an insult to the people of the state. “It is like saying what is coming out of your heart is inferior to what is coming out of the heart of a person from Uttar Pradesh,” Rahul said.

On a two-day visit to Kerala when he would be spending much of the time in Wayanad, Rahul lambasted the BJP and Modi for forcing the “one nation, one leader, one language” policy on the nation.

“This idea that India should have only one leader is an insult to every single young Indian,” he said, questioning why a student, an autorickshaw driver or a police person cannot be a leader.

“What does he (Modi) mean by one leader? Why only one leader? There should be millions of leaders in India,” Rahul said to loud cheers from thousands of people who had thronged the streets to listen to him.

For the second time this election, the United Democratic Front campaign for Rahul had no flags of any party. The alliance had eschewed the party flags when Rahul went on a road show to file his election nomination on April 3, triggering criticism from chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the Left Democratic Front.

The reason behind running Rahul’s campaign without any party flag was to avoid a repeat of 2019 when the Indian Union Muslim League’s green-and-crescent flag was projected in north India as Pakistani colours.

Rahul didn’t spare the ruling Left Democratic Front either for “ignoring” his repeated requests to find solutions for vexed issues such as the man-animal conflict, night ban on road traffic to Mysore, and the long-pending demand for a medical college
in Kalpetta.