BJP slams Rahul Gandhi over his Hinduism remarks

New Delhi: The BJP on Sunday hit back at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remarks that the saffron party and RSS have nothing to do with Hinduism.

"The very fact that Rahul Gandhi thinks that Hinduism is practiced by referring to ‘books’ shows how shallow his understanding of our dharma is," BJP MP Tejasvi Surya wrote on X (formely twitter).

Surya, who is also the president of BJP Yuva Morcha, said: "He has been reduced to crying before a handful of people in some far away European city while Bharat is achieving global consensus at G20 is telling of how the nation has rejected his brand of politics in the last decade."

"I have read the Gita, I have read the number of Upanishads and I have read many Hindu books. There is nothing Hindu about what the BJP does. There is absolutely nothing," the Congress MP said in response to a question during his recent interaction with the students and faculty at Sciences PO University in Paris, France.

Gandhi, who represents the Wayanad parliamentary constituency from Kerala, said: “I have not read anywhere in any Hindu book, heard from any learned Hindu person that you should terrorise or harm people who are weaker than you.

“The BJP and RSS have nothing to do with Hinduism. They are out to get power at any cost and they will do anything to get power.”

"What the BJP and RSS are trying to do, I think it needs to be countered. I think it requires a political imagination. I think it is very important that it is done. The BJP and the RSS is trying to stop the expression and participation of lower castes, other backwards OBCs, tribals and minority communities. For me, in India where a Dalit or a Muslim, or anybody is being mistreated or attacked, is not the India I want," he said.

He added: "The word Hindu nationalists, this is a wrong word, they are not Hindu nationalists, they have nothing to do with Hinduism."