lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Apr 24, 2020 17:17 IST

Congress president Rahul Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made his office a “Publicity Minister’s Office” and that he was very good at marketing himself.

“The Prime Minister’s Office is now Publicity Minister’s Office,” he told a gathering of students and professors from Manipur at the State Film Development Society in Imphal as a part of his Lok Sabha election campaigning.

“He (PM Modi) is very good at publicity. He is very good at marketing himself,” Rahul said, before comparing him with Yoga guru Ramdev, who he said came close to the Prime Minister in terms of marketing.

Attacking the Centre over the Citizenship Amendment Bill, over which there have been widespread protests in north-eastern states, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress doesn’t believe in “cultural imperialism” and would not allow the bill to destroy the lives of the people in the Northeast.

““Citizenship Amendment bill is cultural imperialism. It is an attempt to crush the spirit of the Northeast. Every part of the country should be allowed to express itself. The BJP-RSS combination wants to impose one idea and crush other ideas. They are scared of other cultures. Their heavy-handedness is seen whenever there are protests,” he said.

“Every university in the country now has an RSS man in charge. That is something we will clean up,” he said, and assured that Congress, if it came to power, would restore the special status of Manipur.

On the Northeast, Gandhi said tackling job crisis and increasing connectivity in the region is his party’s priority.

“In our view, the region is a potential manufacturing hub. In the agriculture sector, food and vegetables are being wasted here due to shortage of storage space. Food processing industries can be set up in Manipur,” he said.

Read: Call me Rahul, not sir, says Rahul at women’s college in Chennai

On the personal front, Rahul said Juventus was his favourite football club, whereas he liked Real Madrid, when Ronaldo was a part of it, over Barcelona.

A dog lover, Rahul said his guilty pleasures were ice cream and aloo tikki and that he had read the book “I Am That” several times.

(With PTI inputs)