‘Narendra Modi not a big issue’: Rahul Gandhi takes swipe at PM, says he doesn’t have ‘dum’ (Video)
'Narendra Modi not a big issue': Rahul Gandhi takes swipe at PM, says he doesn't have 'dum' (Video)
Congress Leader Targets Centre Over Vacant Reserved Posts, Says Dalits, OBCs, Tribals Excluded from Key Institutions
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Friday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claiming that the Prime Minister is “not a big problem” and lacks substance. Speaking at the Congress party’s Bhagidari Nyay Sammelan at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, Gandhi said, “He is just a big show. He has been given too much importance. Dum nahin hai (He doesn’t have guts).”
Rahul Gandhi added that after meeting the Prime Minister “two to three times” and “sitting in the same room with him,” he realised that Modi has been “inflated beyond proportion” by the media. “PM Modi is no big deal,” he remarked.
In a broader critique of the Modi-led government, Gandhi accused the Centre of sidelining India’s marginalised communities from key institutions and economic opportunities. He said that Dalits, tribals, backward classes, and minorities—who together form 90 percent of India’s population—were missing from critical spaces such as bureaucracy and corporate leadership.
“You are the ones who make the halwa, but they are the ones eating it,” he said, referring to the symbolic halwa ceremony held before the Union Budget. “We are not saying they shouldn’t eat it, but at the very least, you should get some too.”
Gandhi cited data accessed by the Congress government in Telangana to support his claims, stating that people from SC, ST, and OBC communities were absent from corporate boardrooms but made up the majority of workers under MGNREGA and the gig economy.
Reflecting on his own political journey, Gandhi acknowledged his past shortcomings, saying, “I did not protect the OBCs like I should have when I joined politics in 2004 during the UPA-1 regime.” He described his failure to push for a caste census at the time as a personal mistake, not the party’s, and vowed to correct it.
The Congress leader also took to social media platform X to criticise the Centre for the large number of reserved faculty posts lying vacant in central universities. He alleged that this was not “mere negligence” but a “deliberate attempt to exclude marginalised communities from academia and policy-making.”
In response, BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya hit back, calling Gandhi’s remarks hypocritical. He tweeted, “The irony is rich and the hypocrisy, even richer.” Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s parentage, Malviya added, “This is what happens when the son of a Catholic mother and a Parsi father goes around asking everyone else’s caste.” He accused Gandhi of engaging in “divisive and disgraceful politics,” saying his public mask was “slipping fast.”
The remarks have reignited the ongoing debate over representation, caste census, and inclusion in public institutions, with both major political camps standing firmly divided on the issue.
