Kishan Reddy Slams Congress After Bypoll Losses
Kishan Reddy said the Congress had failed to win a single seat in Delhi in three consecutive Assembly elections, winning only six of 61 seats in Bihar despite a yatra covering 23 districts, and two of 294 seats in West Bengal.
Hyderabad:Union minister for coal and mines G. Kishan Reddy on Friday launched a sharp attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after the party failed to win any of the six by-elections, while the BJP-led NDA secured four seats. He said the results showed voters had once again rejected the Congress’s “politics of noise.”
In a statement, Reddy said the Congress should stop blaming the Election Commission, EVMs and voter lists for its defeats. “There is no ‘vote chori’ in India. There is only ‘vote doori’ — the distance Congress has created between itself and the people through negativity, hate and hollow promises,” he said.
He pointed out that the Congress, which won Nagaon Lok Sabha in 2024, had been pushed to third place behind AIUDF in the current bypoll, managing only a single-digit vote share. In West Bengal’s Nandigram, he said the Trinamool Congress withdrew its candidate and supported the Congress, but the BJP still won by more than 1.22 lakh votes. “Congress can borrow allies, but it cannot borrow the trust of the people,” he said.
Kishan Reddy said the Congress had failed to win a single seat in Delhi in three consecutive Assembly elections, winning only six of 61 seats in Bihar despite a yatra covering 23 districts, and two of 294 seats in West Bengal.
He claimed Rahul Gandhi had faced 99 electoral defeats in two decades. “At least now, Congress should understand the reality and introspect,” he said.
He noted that the Congress had been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989, Bihar since 1990, West Bengal since 1977, Gujarat since 1998 and Andhra Pradesh since 2014, saying the party had “no resonance” in these states.
Kishan Reddy accused Rahul Gandhi of attacking constitutional institutions whenever the Congress lost elections. He said the Leader of the Opposition should respect the people’s mandate and stop insulting Indian democracy. “Votes are earned by spending time with the people of India and understanding their struggles, not by going on foreign trips to criticise the country and spread anti-India sentiments,” he said.
He credited the NDA’s victories to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying people were voting for development, welfare, infrastructure and the goal of a “Viksit Bharat.”