NEW DELHI (The Thursday Times) — Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to an open debate, saying he became prime minister “because of foreign help” and stays in office because of it, after Modi and his party accused the opposition of working with foreign forces to destabilise India.
“Mr Modi, stop lying to this nation. You became PM because of foreign help. You remain PM because of foreign help,” Gandhi wrote on X. “Your financial system is fully controlled and supported by foreigners. Foreign social media fully backs you.”
“I challenge you to an open debate about this. Any stage, any time. Come if you have the guts. You won’t dare, because you are terrified of what I know about you,” he added. He offered no evidence in the post, and did not say what he knows.
The post carried a report of a speech Modi gave on Saturday at the Statue of Unity in Gujarat, where he said forces “after more than a decade of frustration and disappointment” had come out in the open. “Who is secretly meeting whom abroad? Whom are anti-India forces supporting? Who is speaking the language of India’s enemies?” Modi asked, in a remark seen as a veiled reference to Gandhi’s foreign trips.
Earlier on Monday, Nitin Nabin, president of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, made the charge directly at a gathering in Bhagalpur, Bihar. “Rahul Gandhi is being used by a foreign-backed toolkit to create instability in India. He is acting at the behest of foreign powers to create anarchy in the country,” he said.
Home Minister Amit Shah answered the dare at a BJP march in Hyderabad. “Rahul ji, forget Modi ji. Even my Telangana Yuva Morcha president will defeat you,” he said, referring to the head of the party’s youth wing in the state. “The Congress party itself is on a ventilator.” At the same event, Shah called 30 million voters struck off India’s rolls “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and dared Gandhi to debate the purge in parliament.
No direct reply from Modi had been reported by Monday evening.
The exchange comes a day after Gandhi accused Modi of “stealing votes” at an opposition rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, where the INDIA bloc demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the revision of the voter rolls. Nabin said the opposition questions the Election Commission and voting machines only when it loses.
