Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge claimed on Sunday that the only threat to India was from the RSS and the BJP, which were trying to divide people. Lashing out at the BJP leaders for raising the bogey of ‘batenge to katenge’, Kharge said the country was already united and not divided. “Only the BJP and the RSS were trying to divide the people,” he charged. He alleged the RSS people kept talking about dividing and lynching people from morning to evening.


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“The BJP and the RSS had already created divisions in the society through their ideology and by following the Manusmriti, which discriminated between people,” Kharge said while addressing a ‘Save Constitution’ conference. The Congress President expressed relief that the Modi government became a lame government as the BJP did not get ‘400 plus’ seats. He added that it is now dependent on two crutches of Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu. He said, earlier this government would not engage in debates and discussions.


Talking about the healthy relations earlier between the leaders of the ruling party and the Opposition, Kharge recalled the former Prime Minister and BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said Vajpayee even described Indira Gandhi as Durga when she liberated Bangladesh. He said, Vajpayee praised Pandit Nehru as well and he (Nehru) also praised the former.


The Congress President accused Prime Minister Modi of misusing the ED, the CBI, the CVC and other institutions to intimidate political opponents wherever the BJP felt that it was not winning. However, he asked PM Modi as to how long he can intimidate his opponents and how many leaders he can put behind bars. He asserted that the opposition was united and it would not be threatened and intimidated, come what may.


Without taking his name, Kharge took a dig at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying there was a Chief Minister, who wears saffron robes, instead of white, and uses the expression ‘batenge toh katenge” to divide people. Praising the country’s democracy, Kharge pointed out that while India elected a woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi long back and also a woman President from Maharashtra (Pratibha Patil), the United States, despite its claims of being a progressive country had still not elected a woman as President.


He claimed that the credit for establishing such a modern and progressive democracy in the country goes to the Congress and its leaders who laid down strong democratic foundations for the country.