Chennai: In his first election campaign in Tamil Nadu in this Lok Sabha poll season, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday declared that the upcoming parliamentary polls are an “ideological battle” between the INDIA bloc and the BJP, for saving Indian Constitution, democracy and pluralism. 

At back to back election meetings in Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district and in Coimbatore, where the BJP has fielded its State president K Annamalai, the Congress leader expressed the hope that with the people’s overwhelming mandate, the opposition INDIA bloc will win this battle. In Coimbatore, had had addressed a joint meeting with DMK president and Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is the leader of the alliance in Tamil Nadu. 

Accusing the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of backing the ideas of the RSS, he said on the other hand the INDIA bloc favoured a “pluralistic nation” with many different languages and cultures. “The BJP is professing the theory of ‘one nation, one language, one culture and one leader’. But, for the INDIA bloc, all are equal for which the ‘ideological battle’ is on,” he thundered. 

He also assailed the BJP Government at the centre for using as political weapons central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, CBI and Income Tax Department to target opposition leaders and cited the recent arrests of prominent opposition leaders including Aravind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren. He said the Congress’s bank accounts were frozen just before the elections. “Modi is enjoying monopoly over India’s finances and communication systems and his MPs are openly threatening they would change the Constitution of India,” he charged. 

While banks had written off Rs 16 lakh crore loans given to 21 Indians, the Prime Minister had refused to sanction crop loan waivers for farmers pushing the latter to take extreme steps due to lack of minimum support price, the Congress leader charged. He also charged that Tamil, Tamil culture, its history and tradition was being attacked. “There could be no India without Tamil, Bengali and other Indian languages,” he said. 

Rahul Gandhi called upon the electorate to throw out the Modi Government at the centre.