Day after Islamic State remark, Rahul Gandhi in Berlin attacks RSS, BJP for divisive politics; calls China 'real competition'

In an eight-minute video shared by the Indian National Congress on their Twitter, party president Rahul Gandhi has attacked the divisive politics of the Rashtriya Swayamseva Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and stated that the ruling party's ideology is in contrast with that of Congress'.

On his second day in Europe, Rahul was addressing a group of Indians living in Berlin. Rahul said that presently Congress’ job is ‘to unite people and focus on development’. He referred to the current government and said ‘BJP and RSS are working to divide our own people and spread hate in our own country’ instead of watching over India’s actual competition, which is China.

While talking about job opportunities in China and India, Rahul said that the Chinese government is able to employ 50,000 youths every 24 hours, where as Indian government can only manage to employ only 450 youth. He added, “There are long speeches but farmers end up committing suicides. Youths see no direction.”

The Congress had earlier said that Rahul's address could not be aired 'live' due to a technical glitch, but later tweeted out the full video of his speech.

About his own party he said, “Congress is for all and works for all.” He also added that Congress follows the philosophies of unity preached by Guru Nanak.

Rahul is on a five-day tour to Germany and the UK. The Congress president will be visiting Germany for two days. On Thursday, he addressed a gathering at the Bucerius Summer School in Hamburg, Germany where he cited the creation of Islamic State terrorist group to warn against a similar situation in India if people are excluded from the development process, PTI reported.

Rahul, in his address, while referring to the dearth of jobs for minorities had cited the example of 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. Addressing the Congress president directly, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra demanded that Rahul explain his comment, asking that if Modi has not given the 'vision' to minorities, should they join the Islamic State.

"Mr Gandhi, for this comment, we can't forgive you," Patra said.

The Congress and the BJP traded charges over the speech and also hit out at each other over Rahul claiming that incidents of lynching in India were a result of the anger emanating from joblessness and "destruction" of small businesses due to demonetization and "poorly implemented" GST by the ruling BJP.

The BJP accused Gandhi of "belittling and insulting" India in his address in Hamburg yesterday, alleging that the Congress chief tried to justify terrorism and "lied through his teeth" to criticise the Narendra Modi government. The ruling party had demanded that Gandhi apologise for his remarks.

With inputs from PTI