The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reacted sharply to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's remarks against its ideological parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) during his trip to the United States, saying that the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha has a habit of insulting India. Gandhi, while speaking at an event at the University of Texas in the US said RSS “believes that India is one idea, while we (Congress) believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas". 


Slamming Ghadhi's comments, Union Minister Giriraj Singh dubbed him a 'traitor', and claimed RSS was born from the values ​​and culture of India. "If there is any technology to go to his grandmother and ask her about the role of RSS, then go and ask or look in the pages of history. To know about RSS, Rahul Gandhi will have to take many births. A traitor cannot know RSS. Those who go abroad and criticize the country cannot know RSS. It seems that Rahul Gandhi goes abroad only to defame India. Rahul Gandhi will not be able to understand RSS in this birth. RSS is born from the values ​​and culture of India," he told news agency ANI.






BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla also slammed Gandhi for the remarks and demanded an apology from the Congress for comparing India to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. The Emergency was a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when former PM Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared across the country by citing internal and external threats to the country.


"Rahul Gandhi should be the last person advising us on what is the idea of India because his family and his party after the emergency once declared that 'India is Indira' and 'Indira is India'...They should first apologise for comparing India to Indira Gandhi...The family that imposed an emergency, trampled upon constitutional rights, put the opposition in jail, changed the preamble of the constitution is advising us about the constitution," he said. 


Chhattisgarh Deputy CM Arun Sao also reacted to the controversy over Gandhi's remark and said the Congress and his party always bring disrepute to India before the world. "We saw this even during elections. He has been doing this continuously. Gandhi family and Congress party can't stand the country's progress, prestige and pride."


Whenever India's prestige increases globally and the country goes ahead, Congress leaders can't stand it, he further claimed.


 The ruling party's national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari criticised Gandhi and said he was "eager to bat for China".


"Is it because of his MoU with the Communist Party of China that he always bats for China and does not bat for India? Rahul does not stop here, he attacks the Indian legal system just because he is out on bail. He predicts social tension in India just because it is his strategy to divide and rule," Bhandari said.


Rahul Gandhi In US


Rahul Gandhi, in his address to the Indian American community in Texas, said love, respect and humility are missing in Indian politics, and also criticised the RSS for believing that India is one idea. "RSS believes that India is one idea. We believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas," he said. 


"Very much like the United States, we believe everybody should be allowed to participate. We believe that everybody should be allowed to dream, (and) everybody should be given space, regardless of their caste, language, religion, tradition, history,” Gandhi added.


The Congress leader made the remarks on Sunday in Dallas during his first interaction with the Indian diaspora after becoming Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha this summer.


Gandhi also spoke on unemployment in India and drew a comparison with China. "The West has an employment problem. India has an employment problem... But many countries in the world don't have an employment problem. China certainly doesn't have an employment problem. Vietnam doesn't have an employment problem. So there are places on the planet that are not struggling with unemployment," he said.