Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called him “the champion of corruption”.

Addressing a joint press conference in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Gandhi alleged that Modi “ran the world’s biggest extortion racket in the name of ‘Electoral Bonds.”

“All the businessmen of India understand and know this, and no matter how much clarification the Prime Minister wants to give, it will not make any difference. Because the entire country knows that the Prime Minister is the champion of corruption,” Gandhi added.

The Congress leader reiterated that the Lok Sabha elections 2024 are the elections of two ideologies.

“On the one hand, RSS and BJP are trying to destroy the Constitution and the democratic system, and on the other hand, the INDI alliance and Congress party are trying to defend and protect the Constitution and democracy,” he said.

The Gandhi scion further said that the BJP and the prime minister were distracting from the real issues in the elections.

“There are 2-3 big issues in the elections. Unemployment is the biggest and inflation is the second biggest but BJP is engaged in creating distractions…Neither the Prime Minister nor the BJP talks about the issues,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi said that there is a strong undercurrent against the BJP and predicted 150 seats for the saffron party in the upcoming general elections.

Wishing the country on the occasion of Ram Navami, SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who accompanied Gandhi during the presser, said the dreams shown to the farmers and the youth by the BJP turned out to be false.

“Today the farmer is unhappy, all the promises that were made to them, turned out to be false. Neither the farmers’ income doubled, nor did the youth get jobs,” he said.

The SP chief also expressed confidence that the Opposition’s alliance will defeat the BJP-led NDA in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“PDA – Pichre” (backward), Dalit and “Alpashankhak” (minority) – is going to defeat NDA,” he added.

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party, constituents of the Opposition’s INDIA alliance, have formed an alliance to contest the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in Uttar Pradesh.

As per their agreement, the Congress party will contest 17 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, while the Samajwadi Party will contest 62. The remaining seat has been given to INDIA ally partner Trinamool Congress (TMC).