In a rerun of the script of his visit to the UK earlier this year that saw a massive controversy breaking out at home, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has once again targeted opposition leader Rahul Gandhi over his speech in the US where he reached on Tuesday (30) for a 10-day tour.
Senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, one of the Hindu nationalist party's few prominent minority faces and a former federal minister, slammed Gandhi saying the spirit of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of the Muslim-majority neighbouring country of Pakistan, enters the Indian National Congress leader whenever he goes overseas.
Rahul Gandhi slams PM Modi in US, calls him 'specimen'
Jinnah, who was one of the major leaders of British India, was the first governor general of Pakistan after it became independent in August 1947 but could serve for just over a year as he died in September next year. Jinnah was once a leader of the Congress, the party of Rahul Gandhi, but left it over differences with other leaders and became a leader of the All India Muslim League and later the Muslim League.
Gandhi, as he had done in the UK, targeted the Narendra Modi government in the US saying it was "misusing" the country's agencies and "threatening" the people.
Reacting to his allegations, Naqvi, who was India's minority affairs minister between 2016 and 2022, said, “the spirit of Jinnah enters Rahul Gandhi when he is abroad".
“When Rahul Gandhi goes abroad, the spirit of Jinnah or the thinking of people like al-Qaida enters his body. I would suggest him to come to India and get exorcism done from a good exorcist,” Naqvi, 65, added.
“Rahul Gandhi's problem is that even today he is not able to accept how PM Narendra Modi has destroyed his feudal fiefdom through inclusive development. Rahul Gandhi equates democracy with dynasty,” Naqvi said.
The BJP leader also said that Gandhi has taken the contract to defame India and that the Congress had "used Muslims like chewing gum".
In March, Gandhi faced a major backlash from the BJP after attacking the Modi government in the UK and a few days later, he was convicted by a court in the western state of Gujarat in a defamation case and lost his membership of the parliament.
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