Congress should oppose BJP through elections, not by ‘motivated campaigns’: Ravi Shankar Prasad

"If you want to oppose us, then do that in elections. But there you are losing one election after another and their defeat will continue in the coming days as well," Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on August 25 said that the Congress should oppose the BJP through elections and not through "motivated campaigns" after the panel report in the Pegasus spyware case said there was no conclusive evidence of the Pegasus spyware in the 29 phones that were investigated.

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"If you want to oppose us, then do that in elections. But there you are losing one election after another and their defeat will continue in the coming days as well," said Mr. Prasad. "Rahul Gandhi had said Pegasus is an attempt to crush democracy," he recalled.

"It is not in Rahul Gandhi's nature to apologise. What happened when he ran the ' Chowkidar...' campaign? I can't even utter what he said. Our politics is not low-level politics," he added.

Mr. Prasad also recalled what he called "Chewing gum gate" of 2011 and said the Congress has no authority to preach to BJP on snooping. "I am very sorry to refer to former Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee, whose office was bugged by the Congress. It was known as the chewing gum gate. Remember?" Mr. Prasad said.

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"The problem of Rahul Gandhi, his party and his associates, NGOs is that they have so much animosity towards our PM that they resort to falsehood to expand their party. The moment the falsehood explodes, the party shrinks further," he said, added that the Pegasus row was only an addition to the campaign against Prime Minister Modi over Rafale, and the construction of the Central Vista.