Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday urged Congress leaders and workers to have compassion for all and not let pride creep in after sending a resounding message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he had been “rejected”.

Addressing a thanksgiving meeting at a guesthouse here, Rahul said: “Narendra Modi used to say that God had sent him to do the work he had been doing but he was working on the order of some rich people. I don’t know what kind of God he follows who asks him to act on the direction of corporate giants and help them only. You have told him from Rae Bareli and Amethi and Uttar Pradesh that Hindustan has rejected him.”

Rahul addressed around 2,000 Congress workers of Rae Bareli and Amethi Lok Sabha constituencies.

“I am here to say thank you for voting for me and Kishori Lal Sharma,” he said with sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra by his side.

Rahul and Sharma defeated BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh and Smriti Irani in Rae Bareli and Amethi, respectively, by a margin of 3.90 lakh and 1.67 lakh votes. The Congress improved its tally from one in 2019 to six in this election. Ally Samajwadi Party, which had bagged five seats in 2019, won 37 seats this time.

“Even in Varanasi, Narendra Modi has saved himself somehow. He would have lost from there by two to three lakh votes if she (Priyanka) had challenged him. The people of Uttar Pradesh have given him a clear message,” Rahul said while pointing towards Priyanka.

Against the BJP’s claim that Modi’s victory margin in Varanasi would be 10 lakh, he won by around 1.52 lakh votes against Congress’s Ajay Rai. Rai had wanted Priyanka to contest from there.

Recalling the farmer unrest in central Uttar Pradesh in 2019-20, Rahul said: “My family’s relationship with Rae Bareli and Amethi is 100 years old when Jawaharlal Nehru had participated in the farmers’ movement. We are not connected politically with you, we are attached emotionally to the people of the two constituencies.”

“I want to remind you that the work is not over after sending across the message that you reject Modi’s policies and his politics to cater to the rich only. It is not the end of the struggle, it is only a beginning. But you must have compassion for the people and don’t allow any pride to come near you.”

He said the fight INDIA had started would continue with the support of SP workers who worked in coordination with the Congress.

“This happened because Modi after taking over as the Prime Minister in 2014 openly advocated violence. He started working against the culture and tradition of Hindustan. He tried to shake the soul of the country,” Rahul added.

Priyanka also thanked the voters and called upon them to stay united and prepare to overthrow the NDA government at the Centre in future.

Rahul and Priyanka alighted at Fursatganj Airport in Amethi from where they travelled about 25km by road to Bhuemau Guesthouse.

Shailesh Singh, a Congress worker, said: “It was for the first time that the people of the twin constituencies looked happy after 2019. Rahul had lost from Amethi in 2019 and his mother Sonia Gandhi fell sick after winning from Rae Bareli. Both of them didn’t hold such a meeting here in the last five years. Their arrival here to address us gives a sense of satisfaction that we are on the right path.”

Mahendra Kushwaha, a resident of Fursatganj, said: “Whatever development you see in the twin constituencies has been done by the Nehru-Gandhi family. We have only bad experiences with (Smriti) Irani who didn’t talk to us properly.”

He said the airport, Rail Coach Factory, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Footwear Design and Development Institute, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology and many other institutes were opened here during the Congress rule.

“All Irani did was to close Amethi’s Indian Institute of Information Technology in 2016 and shift its resources and students to Allahabad and Lucknow. An educated person would never take such an anti-education step,” Kushwaha added.