Rahul Gandhi denies rift, says Mamata Banerjee very much part of INDIA bloc

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 6

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said Mamata Banerjee was very much part of the INDIA bloc, the multi-party alliance formed to challenge the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“Mamata (Banerjee) is very much part of INDIA and most of the other members who are part of the alliance are still with us. Nitish Kumar has gone to the BJP. You can guess the reasons behind it. We will fight in Bihar together. I don’t agree that lots of our partners are not part of the alliance,” Rahul said while addressing a press conference at Gumla in Jharkhand.

Video over dog biscuit goes viral

• A video showing Rahul offering a biscuit rejected by a dog to its owner went viral on social media, with BJP saying this ‘is how he treats party workers’
• Rahul explained he offered the biscuit to the dog owner to feed his pet as it refused to eat from his hands

The West Bengal CM and TMC supremo recently announced to fight the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal alone and not to enter into any arrangement with INDIA bloc partners – the CPI(M) or Congress.

Rahul also said the caste census was important because if marginalised sections were to be given benefits, it was necessary to count them first.

“The PM calls himself OBC and then gets confused. Earlier, he was saying that there were only two castes in India, the rich and the poor. Fifty per cent of the population of India belongs to the OBC category, Dalits are 15 per cent and Adivasis are 8 per cent. We want a caste census. This is important because if we want to give them participation,” he said.

“Name any OBC owner of the top 100 corporate companies in India. You might have heard the names of Adani, Tata and Birla, but there is no name of any OBC,” he said.

Rahul, who is in Jharkhand as part of his Manipur-Mumbai Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, said the yatra was against injustice taking place in the country in the social, economic and political arenas.

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