The Aam Aadmi Party has released a first list of 20 candidates for next month’s Haryana election.

The AAP is in talks with the Congress for an alliance, but negotiations have hit a roadblock over the number of seats to be allotted to the party; the Delhi party reportedly wants to contest at least 10 of the state’s 90 Assembly seats but the Congress is only willing to give up seven.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tore into the BJP and its ideological parent RSS in public addresses in Dallas in the US. The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha spoke on wide-ranging issues in his interactions with students at the University of Texas and in an address to members of Indian diaspora.

The BJP has reacted sharply to the remarks, saying that Mr Gandhi has a habit of insulting India.

Addressing the Indian diaspora, Mr Gandhi said the RSS believes India is one idea, while the Congress considers it a multiplicity of ideas. “That is the fight,” he said.

Referring to the results of this Lok Sabha election, which denied the BJP a majority, Mr Gandhi said the “fear of BJP” vanished immediately after the poll results. “Within minutes of the election result, nobody was scared of the BJP and the Prime Minister of India. These are huge achievements, not of Rahul Gandhi or Congress, but of the people of India who realised we are not going to accept an attack on the Constitution,” he said.

In his interaction with the students, Mr Gandhi was asked about the low female labour participation in India. In his reply, he pointed to a “bad attitude” Indian males have towards women. “In a large number of Indian males, attitude towards women is ridiculous,” he said, adding that there is a need to change the mindset to think of women the same way we think of men.

Mr Gandhi also said the attitude towards women is also part of the ideological fight between the BJP and the Opposition. “BJP/RSS believe that women should be restricted to a particular role, they should stay at home, cook food, they should not talk too much, we believe women should be allowed to aspire to whatever they want to do,” he said.

Mr Gandhi also spoke on unemployment in India and drew a comparison with China.

“The West has an employment problem. India has an employment problem… But many countries in the world don’t have an employment problem. China certainly doesn’t have an employment problem. Vietnam doesn’t have an employment problem. So there are places on the planet that are not struggling with unemployment.

There’s a reason. If you look at the United States in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, they were the centre of global production. Anything that was made, cars, washing machines, TVs, all made in the United States. Production moved from the United States. It went to Korea, it went to Japan. Eventually, it went to China. If you look today, China is dominating global production… So what has happened? The West, America, Europe, and India have given up on the idea of production and they’ve handed it to China. The act of production creates jobs. What we do, what the Americans do, what the West does, is we organise consumption,” he said.

BJP Hits Back

Mr Gandhi’s remarks have drawn strong remarks from the BJP. The ruling party’s national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari told news agency ANI that Mr Gandhi is “eager to bat for China”.

“Is it because of his MoU with the Communist Party of China that he always bats for China and does not bat for India? Rahul does not stop here, he attacks the Indian legal system just because he is out on bail. He predicts social tension in India just because it is his strategy to divide and rule,” Mr Bhandari said.

“Sam Pitroda says that he is no longer the ‘Pappu’. He has become very evil now because all his statements reflect falsehood against India, all his statements reflect a man who wants to divide society and a man who wants to bat for the Chinese. He insults the Hindu gods by saying that it does not mean God. This is why the INDI Alliance is always against Sanatana,” he said.

“The essence of Rahul’s speech is, it is against Bharat, against the women of India and it is everything that China or any other power want to further their agenda in India. This is why the people of India rejected Rahul Gandhi and Congress in 2014, 2019 and 2024. They will continue to reject it in 2029 and choose PM Narendra Modi,” he added.

Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, has killed at least 59 people since it made landfall in Vietnam. 

​Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, has killed at least 59 people since it made landfall in Vietnam.