Rahul Gandhi calls BJP & RSS 'fake Hindus'; ruling party hits back

Rahul said ideology of Congress is completely opposite of BJP-RSS and only one of the two ideologies can rule India

Taking the names of goddesses from Hindu pantheon, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at BJP and RSS with "fake Hindus" barb and accused the Modi government of trying to "snatch powers of employment and education" from people.

"People from BJP and RSS say they are Hindu parties. If anybody in the last 100-200 years has understood Hinduism most and put it in practice, it was Mahatma Gandhi. We also accept him and the people from RSS and BJP also vouch for him. So if Mahatma Gandhi understood Hinduism, why somebody with (alleged) RSS ideology shot him dead. You should think about this contradiction," Gandhi said addressing a gathering of Mahila Congress at its foundation day in AICC headquarters.

Asserting that the goddess Laxmi is about the power of employment, goddess Saraswati the strength of knowledge and goddess Durga the strength of fearlessness, Gandhi accused the Modi government of snatching all these from the people of India and "weakening women".

Read: Infighting in Gujarat BJP over cabinet berth

"What kind of Hindu are they? They are fake Hindus. They use Hindu religion but they are not Hindus," Gandhi said at the event creating a binary of "good Hindu" and "bad Hindu" and claimed for Congress the "real Hindu" space.

Meanwhile, BJP hit back with its general secretary Arun Singh slamming Rahul saying he is "totally disconnected from the ground" and has "no information".

"No one takes him seriously. He is not a serious person. Look at the track record of Rahul Gandhi. Sometimes he speaks after reading papers, sometimes after copying two or three lines, he doesn't know what is happening on the ground," he said.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, "In his address, Rahul Gandhi hurt Hindu religious sentiments. Laxmi, Durga, Saraswati are the centre of the sentiments of crores of people."

Showing Congress party's symbol of hand, Gandhi at the event said this sign can be seen in photos of lord Mahaveer, lord Buddha, Sai Baba, Jesus Christ and Guru Nanak and even Muslims look at their hands while seeking something from God. "You can't have this hand in the BJP office but can see in every religion," Gandhi said seeking to give an all-religion identity to the Congress symbol.

Congress, which had in AK Antony committee report cited perception of Muslim appeasement about the party one of the key reasons for its worst ever poll debacle in 2014 general elections, had assiduously gone for an image makeover in last few years reaching out to Hindus even while targetting the BJP, whose Hindutva nationalism plank ensured its two consecutive general election victories. The party called Rahul Gandhi a 'janeudhaari Brahmin'' and a "Shiv Bhakt '' during the 2018 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh.

Of late, Rahul has been taking a strong position on the plank of secularism and asked "those scared of RSS '' to leave the party. The party this month appointed Digvijaya Singh, a trenchant critic of BJP's Hindutva politics, the head of a panel to identify issues to take on the BJP nationally.

Party sources say that Congress is going in with a balanced approach on the Hindutva issue and will not leave Hinduism plank solely to the BJP and will instead raise questions on the commitment of the BJP and RSS to Hinduism rather than appearing to be against Hindu politics.

At the Mahila Congress event, Gandhi said, "All these people from RSS have got confused. We have to remove this confusion about Hinduism from the mind of such people".

He also said that the ideology of the Congress was completely opposite to that of the BJP and RSS and only one of the two ideologies can rule the country.

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