Description
Rahul Gandhi said that Indian institutions are under threat The BJP's ideological father, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is a "fundamentalist" and "fascist" organization, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said. Speaking at a session organized by Chatham House, a London-based think tank, Gandhi said yesterday that several institutions in India were currently under threat and that the RSS had "captured all the institutions in India."
"The nature of democratic competition in India has completely changed. The reason why it has changed is that an organization called RSS, a fundamentalist and fascist organization, has captured virtually all of India's institutions," he said.
The BJP has accused the Congress leader of smearing India abroad. Several Union ministers, including Anurag Thakur, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Arjun Munda, have spoken out against Gandhi, calling his accusations untrue.
Speaking at the London event, Gandhi said RSS could be described as a "secret society" modeled on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization banned in several countries for its links to terrorism.
"The idea is to use democratic competition to come to power and then overthrow democratic competition afterwards," Gandhi said.
The Congress leader's comments are the latest in his major crackdown on the ruling BJP during his trip abroad.
Speaking at the same event, he also said that the BJP likes to believe that it will always be in power.
Speaking about what led to the failure of the Congress in the 2014 elections when the BJP came to power, he said that the UPA government had missed the move from rural political discourse to urban space.
"We focused a lot on the rural space and we lost the ball early on in the urban space. That's a given. Those things are there. But to say the BJP is in power and Congress is gone, that's actually an idea. ridiculous," he said.
Beating up the Congress leader, Union Minister Thakur asked him "not to betray the nation". "Do not betray India, Rahul Gandhiji. Objections to India's foreign policy are proof of your weak understanding of the matter. No one will believe the lies you spread about India from foreign soil," he declared.
