BJP slams Rahul Gandhi over RSS remark

Taking a dig at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who on Thursday continued attacking the RSS for its “hateful and divisive agenda,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson G.V.L. Narsimha Rao said, “Gandhi’s “face saving verbal gymnastics after a surrender in court on RSS won’t help. False bravado and bluster no substitutes to truth.”

On Wednesday, Mr Gandhi told the Supreme Court that he did not ever blame the RSS for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination but had only said that a “few individuals in the organisation” were responsible for it. But on Thursday, he tweeted, “I will never stop fighting the hateful and divisive agenda of the RSS. I stand by every single word I said.”

After Mr Gandhi’s tweet, the BJP raked up past cases of rape and murder involving Congress leaders to ask if Mr Gandhi could be linked with these heinous crimes.

The ruling party also accused the Congress vice-president of speaking lies to target RSS and asked him why the previous Congress-led UPA government did not take any action against the RSS during its 10 years in power.

“Those living in glass houses should not throw stones at others. Can Rahul Gandhi be linked with the rape and murder of dalit woman Bhanwari Devi or killing of Naina Sahni because those accused of these crimes were from the Congress ... The truth is that RSS has only grown in strength despite attempts by likes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi to target it. It just shows Rahul Gandhi’s ideological bankruptcy and we do not take him seriously,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.