'Rahul does drama, Cong a drama company': Hegde

Rahul Gandhi does ''drama'' and the Congress is a ''drama company'', Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde has said, attacking the Congress president over his frequent visits to places of worship during elections.

The Minister of State for Skill Development said it is only now (during elections) that Rahul Gandhi has realised that a religion called "Hindu Dharma" exists.

"Today, our Rahul Gandhi has remembered that there is also a Hindu dharma in our country and that's the reason he has started visiting temples and maths," Hegde told a public rally in Belagavi district of poll-bound Karnataka.

"That man does not even know how to take teertha (holy water given to devotees at temples). Just because someone advised him, he goes to temples and maths with Kaavi (saffron) clothes wearing Rudraksh malas (garlands)...to mosques donning (skull) cap with chicken feather, and churches wearing a cross. He wants to do drama, nothing else," he said.

Hegde has often landed in trouble for making controversial remarks and, at times, had to tender an apology.

The rabble-rousing Lok Sabha MP from Uttara Kannada recently spoke about changing the Constitution to remove the word "secular". He apologised following an uproar.

His earlier remarks linking Islam to terrorism had also set off a controversy.

The minister said as long as there is Congress, there is no future for the country.

"They are people who do drama. They don't have honesty. They don't know about visiting religious centres with devotion. They just want to go there because others go. This drama company should not be there in the country in the days to come," he said.

Hegde said the Congress only indulges in "looting the country and dishonouring religion".