"Rahul Means Bharat, Bharat Means Rahul": New UP Congress Chief
NDTV
Mr Khabri, who was earlier with the BSP, was recently appointed the state Congress chief and he assumed charge on Saturday.
Buoyed by the response to the Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra, newly appointed Uttar Pradesh party chief Brijlal Khabri has hailed Rahul Gandhi by saying "Rahul means Bharat, and Bharat means Rahul", and asserted his aim is to "save" the country and the Constitution.
His remarks in an interview with the PTI on Friday was a reminiscent of former Congress president Dev Kant Barooah's famous "India is Indira, Indira is India" utterance, which the party's rivals have often used to criticise the Congress and the Gandhi family.
Mr Khabri parried queries on why the Bharat Jodo Yatra is scheduled to pass through just one district (Bulandshahr) in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, saying, "Bharat is not a district nor it is a state. It is an union of states. He is covering 13 states, and has set a big aim." He lambasted the BJP government for "trying to sell the country and abolish the Constitution".
He also said the Congress was "targeting to win all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in the 2024 general elections", and warned the BJP it would lose deposits in Rae Bareli, which is currently represented by Sonia Gandhi, and Amethi, which Rahul Gandhi lost to Smriti Irani of the BJP in 2019.
