PoliticsOpposition
'Get satisfied with me first': Nishikant Dubey offers to debate Rahul Gandhi at Congress office
The BJP MP answered Rahul Gandhi's renewed dare to Narendra Modi with an offer of his own, asking the Leader of Opposition to name the day and time. Kiren Rijiju had already mocked the challenge.
Key points
- Nishikant Dubey offered to debate Rahul Gandhi at the Congress office.
- Rahul had dared Modi to pick any stage and any venue on the 'anti-national' charge.
- Kiren Rijiju said top-level debates are for mature people.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Tuesday night offered to debate Rahul Gandhi himself, turning the Leader of Opposition’s dare to Prime Minister Narendra Modi back on him.
In a post on X, the Godda MP said he was ready to come “to the Congress office to debate with you on papers, issues” and asked Rahul to fix the day and the time. He added: “Get satisfied with me first, then challenge our leaders.”
The dare
Rahul had earlier on Tuesday renewed his challenge to the Prime Minister, saying 24 hours had passed since he first made it. The challenge answers Modi’s charge at the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas event in Gujarat on Saturday that the opposition had turned into an “Avrodh Paksh”, a party of obstruction, rather than a “Virodh Paksh”.
“Choose any stage, any venue, and debate me on this,” Rahul wrote. “Who is anti-national? Who has connections with foreign forces? We’ll both be there. The media will be there.” He suggested the Prime Minister could choose the moderator and said, “You can even make Mohan Bhagwat ji the judge.”
He also dared Modi to file a defamation case over the “foreign connections” charge. “Go ahead, file one,” he said.
BJP hits back
Union minister Kiren Rijiju had already dismissed the challenge on X. He compared it to “Islamic fundamentalists talking about secularism” and wrote: “Pushing agendas of India’s enemies yet accusing others of foreign support is self-ridiculing.” He added that top-level debates were only for mature people: “Top level debates are done between matured people.”
There was no response from the Prime Minister by midnight. The exchange adds to a week of sharp words between the BJP and the INDIA bloc over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and the opposition’s campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.