New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi made another provocative attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh during his overseas tour, this time equating the right-wing group to the radical Islamist outfit Muslim Brotherhood while addressing students in London on Friday.
“RSS is trying to change the nature of India. Other parties haven't tried to capture India's institutions. RSS's idea is similar to the idea of Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world," he said at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist organisation founded in Egypt and is considered to be a terror outfit by Russia and six west Asian nations.
The Congress president said that while his party binds the people of India, the BJP-RSS divides them and spreads hatred. “The BJP-RSS people are dividing our own people. They are spreading hatred in our own country. Our job is to bring the people together and take the country forward and we have shown how to do it," he said.
He said that RSS men have been planted in all departments and ministries of the government and blamed it for demonetisation. The idea of demonetization, he said, came directly from RSS, bypassed the Finance Minister and RBI, and was planted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's head.
The BJP launched a furious counter-attack for comparing its ideological mentor RSS with the radical outfit and accused him of acting as a "contract killer of the idea called India" for his attempt to present them as a terror organisation.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said likes of President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who died last week, have a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) background and Gandhi's comparison of the organisation with an Islamist outfit at an event in London is "unforgivable".
Addressing the media, Patra demanded immediate apology from the Congress president for likening the choice of Indians in an election with an organisation which, the BJP leader added, is declared a terror outfit in many countries.
He asked if Gandhi has taken a 'supari' (contract for killing) for India. "Stop this job of acting as a contract killer of the idea called India," he said. “Instead of being a proud Indian leader on foreign countries, the Congress president has been attempting to insult and belittle India abroad," he alleged.
"India is asking you is some terrorist organisation ruling India? It is a democratically elected government. Is this government, is this choice of people of India for a terror organisation," he asked.
Gandhi's RSS comparison comes just a day after his ISIS analogy drew a sharp rebuttal from the BJP. He had cited the example of Islamic State terrorist group to say that exclusion of a large number of people from the development process could lead to the creation of insurgent groups anywhere in the world, while alluding to the Modi government.
He also linked the incidents of lynching in India to joblessness and the lack of opportunities for the poor who, he said, were not being given equal opportunities after demonetisation.
Reacting sharply, the BJP said the Congress leader had not only justified the terror outfit but also denigrated the minority community.
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