NEW DELHI: The BJP on Wednesday demanded that Congress President Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi should apologise for defaming Hindus globally and cited a telegram sourced from Wikileaks to back its claim.

The BJP's renewed attack on the Congress comes a day after a special anti-terror court acquitted rightwing activist Swami Aseemanand and four others in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case in Hyderabad.

"If Congress considers India to be its own, then Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the whole country for defaming the great Hindu religion by trying to prove that there was something called saffron terror'," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said at a press conference.

He showed a telegram sourced from Wikileaks quoting a conversation during the former Congress-led UPA government between then US ambassador and Rahul Gandhi.

According to the transcript of the conversation, Rahul Gandhi said saffron terror was a bigger threat than the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"This shows the mindset of Rahul Gandhi towards Hindus. His party has always take Hindus for granted," Patra said.

On Monday, Patra said people would teach the Congress a lesson in the Karnataka Assembly polls as they had in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when it was reduced to 44 seats.

"For its appeasement politics, the Congress targeted and defamed Hindus and the country for merely some votes. That conspiracy has been exposed. The Congress has been exposed like never before," he had said after the verdict came in.