Rajnath Singh Says "Like Dinosaurs, Congress Will Be Extinct In Few Years"

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said today that the Congress will become extinct like the dinosaur in a few years and likened the infighting in that party to the reality show "Bigg Boss".

"The exodus of leaders from the Congress continues. They are quitting the party one after another and joining the BJP," he said at a rally in Uttarakhand's Gauchar.

"I am afraid that in a few years from now, the Congress will become extinct like the dinosaur. In a few years after 2024, if we take the name of the Congress, children will ask, who?" Rajnath Singh added.

He also commented on the infighting in the opposition party.

"They are fighting with each other daily. The party has become somewhat like the house of 'Big Boss' on TV. They are tearing each other's clothes daily," Mr Singh said.

The senior BJP leader was here to campaign for the party's candidate for the Pauri Lok Sabha seat Anil Baluni.

The defence minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has emerged as a strong country. Its voice is heard distinctly on international forums and taken seriously, Rajnath Singh added.

He claimed that the Russia-Ukraine war was suspended for over four hours following PM Modi's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden for the safe evacuation of 22,500 Indian students stranded in Ukraine.

Rajnath Singh said the world is acknowledging the progress made by India over the last few years.

He also quoted US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti as saying that if the world has to see the future, it should come to India.

"We are manufacturing most of our defence equipment in India now. Earlier, we used to export defence equipment worth only Rs 600 crore. Over only seven years, we are exporting defence equipment worth over Rs 21,000 crore. India is not an ordinary country now," the defence minister said.

Describing the BJP as a party that does what it says, Mr Singh said it implements its manifestos verbatim.

"We said we would abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, we did. We said we would bring the Citizenship Amendment Act, and we did. We had been saying since 1984 that we would build a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya and we did that too," he said.

"On the contrary, parties like the Congress have been making only false promises to people. If they had fulfilled even 50 per cent of the promises made in their manifestos, India would have been a developed country," he said.