In an emotional riposte to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s jibes at her Italian origins, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said that ‘India is my country and my home where my ashes will mingle with those of my loved ones.’
Addressing an election rally, Gandhi used the same platform here to hit back at the Prime Minister who had raked up her Italian connections while mounting a veiled attack on the AugustaWestland chopper deal only a day ago.
The Prime Minister had made sarcastic references to Gandhi's foreign origins as he engaged the crowds here in typical question-answer interludes when he sought to know if any of the assembled had connections with Italy. The crowds had roared back an enthusiastic ‘no’ to which Modi said that everybody knew "who has", in a veiled reference to the Congress president and family.
On Monday, Sonia Gandhi reserved her observations ‘about something personal, not politics’ towards the end of the speech even as she criticised Modi, the BJP and the RSS for ‘taunting her’ for her Italian parentage.
“Yes, I was born in Italy to proud and honest parents. I will never be ashamed of them. I came to India as a daughter-in-law and I’ve now spent 48 years here.”
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“This is my home, my country, where I will breathe my last. This is where my ashes will mingle with those of my beloved ones.”
The Prime Minister can ‘sink to whatever depths’ to challenge my integrity but he cannot take away ‘the truth from my commitment and love for India.’
“I cannot expect the Prime Minister to understand these feelings. But I am sure you will,” she told the second rally in Kerala on the first day of her campaigning.
The Prime Minister, she said, was indulging character assassination of his opponents. He is jittery because of the support to Congress from farmers, dalits, adivasis and minorities.
“Modi is afraid because we have exposed the divisive and communal agenda of the RSS-BJP. But we shall not yield to their threats and harassment.”
A ‘major achievement’ of the Centre in recent times has been weakening the roots of democracy as is evident in its interventions in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Gandhi said.
"Its here that I'll breathe my last & its here that my ashes will mingle with those of my loved ones" https://t.co/M0HHa4W13o
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) May 9, 2016