“Standing with forces that conspire to divide the country and making anti-national statements have become a habit for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party,” Shah said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Whether it is supporting the JKNC’s anti-national and anti-reservation agenda in J&K or making anti-India statements on foreign platforms, Rahul Gandhi has always threatened the nation’s security and hurt sentiments,” Shah added.
Rahul Gandhi, in an event in US on Tuesday, accused the RSS of considering certain religions, languages, and communities as inferior to others. He said that the fight in India is not about politics but about the rights of individuals to practice their religion freely. Rae Bareli MP specifically asked a Sikh attendee, “What is your name, brother with the turban,” and then said, “The fight is about whether a Sikh is going to be allowed to wear his turban in India or a kada in India. Or he, as a Sikh, is going to be able to go to a gurdwara. That’s what the fight is about. And not just for him, for all religions.”
Banned Khalistani terror-group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) endorsed Rahul’s comments, saying that it justifies SFJ’s global Khalistan referendum campaign. Describing Gandhi’s comments as “bold and pioneering,” SFJ chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said, “Rahul’s statement on ‘existential threat to Sikhs in India’ is not only bold and pioneering but is also firmly grounded in the factual history of what Sikhs have been facing under successive regimes in India since 1947 and also corroborates SFJ’s stance on the justification for Punjab Independence Referendum to establish Sikh homeland Khalistan.”
Criticizing his comments, Shah said, “Rahul Gandhi’s statement lays bare the Congress’s politics of causing rifts on the lines of regionalism, religion, and linguistic differences.”
Shah also condemned Rahul for his remarks on the reservation, and said it has once again brought to the forefront the Congress’ anti-reservation face. “By speaking about abolishing reservations in the country, Rahul Gandhi has once again brought the Congress’s anti-reservation face to the forefront. The thoughts that were in his mind eventually found their way out as words. I want to tell Rahul Gandhi that as long as the BJP is there, neither can anyone abolish reservations nor can anyone mess with the nation’s security,” Shah said.
Shah’s remarks were in response to Gandhi’s statement to students at Georgetown University in the United States. The Congress leader said that his party would consider abolishing reservations when “India is a fair place”, which he said is not the case right now.
