Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday remarked that the fear of the Bharatiya Janata Party "vanished within minutes" of the result of this year's Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi made the statement during his first interaction with the Indian diaspora in Dallas, US after becoming the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha in June this year.
Addressing the Indian American community in Texas, Gandhi also attacked the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh saying that it believes that India is one idea. "We believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas," he said. "We believe that everybody should be allowed to participate, allowed to dream, and should be given space regardless of their caste, language, religion, tradition, or history," he added.
The Raebareli MP said that the fight was between the two ideologies which were crystalised in the elections when "millions of people in India clearly understood that the Prime Minister of India was attacking the Constitution of India."
"They were saying that the BJP is attacking our tradition, attacking our language, attacking our states, attacking our histories. Most importantly, what they understood was that anybody who is attacking the Constitution of India is also attacking our religious tradition," he said.
Referring to his first Parliament speech after becoming the LoP this year, Gandhi mentioned the 'Abhaymudra' saying it is a symbol of fearlessness which is present in every single Indian religion and that the BJP could not understand it.
Talking about the Lok Sabha elections where the BJP failed to get a majority on its own after two such consecutive terms, Gandhi said the "fear of the BJP vanished." "We saw that immediately, within minutes of the election result, nobody in India was scared of the BJP or the Prime Minister of India," he said.