Rahul attacks RSS-BJP, says Modi's popularity nose-diving

Mathura, Sep 21: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday trained guns on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), accusing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government of towing its line on all issues. "This is Congress, not RSS, or else if Mohan Bhagwat would have come on the stage and said that the sky is pitch black, others would have agreed," the Congress leader said while speaking at the party's Chintan Shivir held in Mathura. In his first direct interaction with the party workers after the Lok Sabha debacle where the Congress lost from all but two constituencies in Uttar Pradesh - Rae Bareli and Amethi, Gandhi urged party workers to work in tandem with the ethos and ideology of the party. He also admitted publicly that the Congress was the "number chaar ki party in UP" (fourth position party in Uttar Pradesh). Citing Apple founder Steve Jobs, the Gandhi scion said the party should work in a team spirit where ideas of everyone are heard and the power is not concentrated in some select hands only. He again assailed the RSS, saying while it and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were proponents of a single theory and ideology, the Congress allowed all faiths within the party to prosper and flourish. He also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had forgotten all promises made to the people of India during the Lok Sabha polls last year. Claiming that he was hearing negative reviews about Modi's performance everywhere he was visiting, Gandhi said the popularity graph of the prime minister was nose-diving. "Even we together cannot bring him the kind of harm he is doing to his image," Gandhi said while telling workers that they may attack the prime minister but remember that Modi himself was doing this job of the opposition brilliantly. He added that very soon the Congress would take the ground Modi is steadily losing.