BJP, RSS captured all institutions in country: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tuesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of capturing institutions and putting pressure on the EC and the judiciary and also declared that he will not visit an RSS office even if someone slits his throatAnswering a question on the possibility of reaching out to his cousin and BJP MP Varun Gandhi he said their ideologies do not matchI can never go to an RSS office You can slit my throat but I will not go My family has an ideology it has a thought system he said at a press conference here on the sidelines of his Bharat Jodo YatraAlso read Man attempts to hug Rahul Gandhi during Bhart Jodo Yatra in Punjabs HoshiarpurI can meet him hug him But I cannot accept that ideology that is impossible he saidHe accused the RSS and the BJP of controlling institutionsThere is a pressure on all the institutions There is a pressure on the press there is a pressure on bureaucracy there is a pressure on the Election Commission they put pressure on the judiciary he chargedThis is not a fight between one political party and another political party It is now a fight between the institutions which were captured by them and the opposition Out of which one factor is EVM he said to a question on Electronic Voting MachinesNormal democratic processes in the country are now missing he claimedHe also asserted that it is abundantly clear that economic distress unemployment and price rise will deal a severe blow to the BJPHis remarks on Varun Gandhi come amid speculation that the BJP MP who often has been critical of his own party might be joining the CongressTo a question the Congress leader said Varun is in the BJP and if he walks into the yatra he will face a problem implying that the saffron party might objectGandhi whose foot march is passing through Punjab also took a swipe at the ruling AAP government in the state saying Punjab should be run from Punjab only not from DelhiIt is a historical fact If it is run from Delhi then people of Punjab will not accept it It is not political but it is a factiquest he further saidGandhi on Monday had said that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann should not be remote controlled and should run the state independentlyOn the Shiromani Akali Dal raising questions on his visit and seeking his apology for Operation Bluestar and the 1984 antiSikh riots Gandhi said the former prime minister Manmohan Singh had made his position and that of the Congress very clearFormer Congress president Sonia Gandhi has also done that and I fully endorse what former Prime Minister Singh ji and Sonia Gandhi ji said I have also made my stance abundantly clear in the past he saidGandhi said there was no security lapse in the march on Tuesday after a man came rushing to meet him and tried to hug himI do not know why you are calling that a lapse I think the person was checked by the security people he was a bit overexcited There is quite a lot of enthusiasm to the Yatra Many people get overexcited and that was the case where he was a bit extra charged up so there is no problem in that It has happened many times before I wouldnt call that a security lapse said GandhiThe man rushed towards Gandhi to hug him during the yatra but was stopped by Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja WarringInspector General of Police G S Dhillon said there was no security breachThe march which started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 will conclude in Srinagar by January 30 with Gandhi hoisting the national flag in the summer capital of Jammu and KashmirIt has so far covered Tamil Nadu Kerala Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Telangana Maharashtra Madhya Pradesh Rajasthan Delhi Uttar Pradesh and HaryanaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever