Smriti Irani takes on Rahul Gandhi, says his 'Ram naam japna' is a victory for BJP

Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Smriti Irani on Saturday said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi doing ‘aartis’ and chanting the name of lord Ram is a victory of the ruling party.

Hours after the Congress president and other party leaders performed ‘aarti’ during Narmada puja in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Smriti Irani said that Rahul Gandhi had to go to temples for “political salvation”.

Raking up the issue of “Hindu terror”, the BJP leader said, “For Mr Gandhi to say that he is afraid of Hindu terror, for Mr Gandhi and his party to give an affidavit in a court of law saying that Ram did not ever exist, today for him to do 'aartis' & 'Ram naam japna' in itself is a victory of BJP.”

She said that Rahul Gandhi’s visits to temples is an attempt to hoodwink people and target “majority community” votebank, alleging that the Gandhi scion treated Hindus with “disdain over years”.

“From half-baked truths and lies, Rahul Gandhi today has to go for his political salvation into temples. This exercise by him is an attempt to hoodwink people into believing he can be acceptable amongst a majority community that he treated with disdain over years,” said the Union minister.

This comes just days after a similar attack on the Congress chief by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra. Last month when Rahul Gandhi had kickstarted his Amethi visit by offering prayers at a temple of lord Shiva, Patra had referred to it as a “fancy dress competition”.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Patra had alleged that it was the same Rahul Gandhi on whose insistence the term saffron terror was coined, and that it was the same Rahul Gandhi who had said that Hindus were a bigger threat than terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

He had further said, “Remember today, suddenly Mr Rahul Gandhi, because he has read the Antony commission report quite late, wants to conduct a fancy dress competition. He cannot demean the intelligence of the people of this country. It is good, it is rightful, it is in fact the duty of every person to follow one’s own method of practice of religion. We have nothing about that, but the people of this country are pretty intelligent, people are seeing this and people would reply.”

(With ANI Inputs)