Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is on a maiden visit to Kerala’s Wayanad constituency as an MP, on Saturday held a roadshow in Kalpetta.

Wasting no time in targeting Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, while addressing the supporters, said the “prime minister was using the poison of hatred to divide this country” and that the Congress party was “fighting this poison at the national level”.

“At the national level, we are fighting poison. Mr Narendra Modi uses poison, I am using a strong word but Mr Narendra Modi uses poison of hatred to divide this country. He uses anger and hatred to divide the people of this country. He uses lies to win elections,” Rahul Gandhi said.

He further said the prime minister “represents anger, hatred, insecurity and lies”.

On the second day of his maiden visit to his constituency, Rahul Gandhi said the doors of the Congress party will be open for every single person of Wayanad, regardless of their age, region or ideology.

Earlier on Friday, Rahul Gandhi launched a fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his old ‘love wins over hate’ barb.

Addressing supporters in Kerala’s Nilambur, Gandhi said that the new government only spreads hatred while Congress understands that love can combat hatred.

The 48-year-old Congress chief said that he and his party is committed to defending weak people in the country “under attack by Modi himself”.

Gandhi, who won from Wayanad constituency by a record margin, also expressed his intention of building a “better Wayanad”.

Rahul Gandhi landed at Kozhikode airport around 2 pm on Friday before arriving in Wayanad parliamentary constituency to a massive public reception, kick-starting his three-day visit to the state.

Moving around in a convoy of 100 vehicles, Gandhi, accompanied by senior party leaders, was in an open vehicle and despite heavy rain, thousands of people waited cheerfully to see him.

Enroute to Nilambur, he had tea at a roadside tea stall. He interacted with the people at the tea stall and also posed for selfies.

Gandhi is scheduled to participate in at least 15 public receptions across the constituency, spread over the districts of Wayanad, Malappuram and Kozhikode in these three days.

This is Gandhi’s first political outing after the party’s drubbing in the general elections.

While the Congress suffered a major debacle in the parliamentary election in the rest of the country, it managed to win a significant number of seats in Kerala and Punjab finishing with a total tally of 52.

Wayanad was one of the two seats from where the 48-year-old Gandhi contested – the other being Amethi, the Gandhi family bastion which he lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani.