Rahul Gandhi takes charge as Congress president

Rahul Gandhi formally took charge as the Congress president at a function where he was handed over the certificate of victory.

The 47-year-old is the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to occupy this post and replaced his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who was in office for 19 years.

Speaking soon after taking charge, the newly elected president launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.

“The Congress took India into the 21st century while the Prime Minister today is taking us backwards, to a medieval past where people are butchered because of who they are, beaten for what they believe and killed for what they eat. This ugly violence shames us in the world. Our country, whose philosophy and history is born out of love and compassion, is tarnished by such horror and no amount of hugs can repair the damage done to this great country of ours,” said Mr. Gandhi.

“This vision belongs to a time where people did not have the rights and freedoms that have made our country the profound entity it is — a time when people did not have voice, did not have the right to dissent, to disagree, to differ, to be,” he said.