Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. (File photo)
In a new twist to Gandhigiri, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today said - just hours after national elections were announced - that his party will rout the main opposition BJP with "love."
"The Congress did not use anger to make the British leave India. We sent them back with love. The Congress will send the BJP away with love as well," said the 43-year-old Mr Gandhi, who is spearheading the Congress' campaign in the elections beginning on April 7.
Speaking at an election rally in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, he accused the BJP of attempting to concentrate power in the hands of one man. He was alluding to the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, but did not name him.
The national elections this year are seen as a direct contest between the 63-year-old Mr Modi and Mr Gandhi. Rahul, unlike the BJP leader, has not been named his party's official candidate for PM, but is widely expected to get the top job should the Congress win a third straight term at the Centre.
In another Maharashtra town this morning, Mr Gandhi told a young audience at an engineering college, "My becoming or not becoming PM does not matter. What is most important is that everyone here, specially women and youth in country, feel that this is their own country."
Here too, he talked of love. And Mr Modi, again without naming him. The German dictator Hitler, Mr Gandhi said, shouted because he lacked confidence. But Mahatma Gandhi did not need to shout. "There is no need for saying things aggressively. You can say it with love. Many people will be with you," he said.
Mr Gandhi is the son, grandson and great-grandson of prime ministers and his family has dominated the country's politics since independence. His great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, played a key role in negotiating India's freedom from the British 67 years ago.