Congress planning ‘Modi-like’ event for Rahul Gandhi in Dubai next month

The Congress party is gearing up for a ‘Modi-like’ event for its president Rahul Gandhi in Dubai next month. According to reports, the Congress president, who is currently on a spiritual journey to Kailash Mansarovar, will visit Dubai in October as part of his Middle East tour.

Gandhi will kick-start the Congress party’s election campaigns for Assembly elections in three crucial states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – after returning from his Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. In between the campaign, the Gandhi will take a couple of days off from the electioneering for his Dubai tour.

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The Congress, reports said, has already started preparations for the mega event and is in talks to hire Dubai’s Sharjah cricket stadium that can house over 50,000 people at a time. The move is seen as Congress’ attempt to match BJP’s event management skills.

The ruling party had successfully planned several big events of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on foreign soils to showcase his “popularity” among non-resident Indians.

In February, Modi had addressed a massive gathering at Dubai’s Opera House. The event was highly successful as the BJP managed to gather a large number of Indian-origin people to listen to the prime minister.

In September 2017, the Congress party, by and large, had succeeded in revamping Gandhi’s image from a “reluctant politician” to “battle-ready leader” with his famous address at the University of California in Berkeley, US. The Congress leader had used the event to target the Modi government for his failure. This was the event when the BJP could not laugh him out of the court and party actually had to respond to him.

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After the Berkeley, the idea became a hit with the Congress president addressing few more such gatherings. The most recent was his tour to Germany and the UK. During his event, the Congress president shook not just the BJP but its ideological parent RSS as well. The Gandhi scion linked the RSS with the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world.