Rahul Gandhi belittled India, must apologise: BJP

New Delhi: Attacking Congress president Rahul Gandhi for “belittling” and “insulting” India in his address at an event in Germany, the BJP on Thursday sought the Congress chief’s apology for his comments on a range of issues, which the ruling party alleged had presented India in a bad light. Reacting sharply to Mr Gandhi’s ISIS analogy, the BJP said the Congress leader had not only justified the terror outfit but also denigrated the minority community.

Mr Gandhi had addressed a gathering at Bucerius Summer School in Hamburg, Germany, on Wednesday, where he cited the example of the Islamic State terrorist group to say that the exclusion of a large number of people from the development process could lead to the creation of insurgent groups anywhere in the world. He said the BJP government had excluded tribals, dalits and the minorities from the development narrative, and “this could be a dangerous thing”.

“If you do not give people a vision in the 21st century, somebody else will. And that is the real risk of excluding a large number of people from the development process,” Mr Gandhi said. He also linked incidents of lynching in India to joblessness and lack of opportunities for the poor who, he said, weren’t given equal opportunities.

Mr Gandhi had also mentioned his famous hug of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament and said some of his own party members did not like it when he hugged Mr Modi during the debate on the no-confidence motion against the government in July. He said Mr Modi was making “hateful remarks” about him but he had showed affection, and the basic idea was that it is foolish to respond to hate with hate, as doing so would not solve any problem.

Hitting back at the Congress president, BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said Mr Gandhi “left no opportunity to belittle India and present it in a bad light”, and that his speech was “full of lies and deception, and its sole aim was to insult India”.

Taking a dig at Mr Gandhi, the BJP leader said: “Rahul Gandhi has behaved like Rahul Gandhi, and expecting any maturity from him is a futile exercise.”

The ruling party said the Congress leader presented India in a bad light by allegedly blaming the country’s culture for violence against women. “Rahul Gandhi must apologise for blaming Indian culture for crimes against women. Ironically, his mother was accepted by the same Indian culture that he is denigrating on foreign soil... Wasn’t this the Indian culture which helped Mrs Sonia Gandhi reach the top? Rahul and Sonia Gandhi should come out and explain how they can point fingers at this great Indian culture,” said the BJP leader, seeking Mr Gandhi’s apology for his response on the issue of women’s safety in India.

Mr Patra said the Congress president had a poor opinion of India as he kept talking about China, even though India had become “one of the leading countries in the world” under the Narendra Modi government. The BJP leader wondered whether the figures Mr Gandhi cited on China producing 50 jobs every 24 hours compared to India’s 44 were “manufactured at 10 Janpath”.

The BJP leader said Mr Gandhi “lied through his teeth” in accusing the Modi government of striking down a law on atrocities against dalits and tribals when Parliament had in fact made the law more stringent by passing an amendment in the recently-ended Monsoon Session. On the right to food law, the BJP leader said that during the UPA days it was implemented in only 11 states but it has been enforced in all 29 states and seven Union territories under the BJP-led NDA government.