New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) differences with Congress president Rahul Gandhi were “political and not personal” in nature, Union home minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday, in the latest salvo fired by the ruling party in its war of words with the main opposition party.
The BJP has always believed in differentiating between political and ideological issues and “did not believe in making things personal”, Singh said in Lucknow on the sidelines of an event.
Singh’s ministry, however, hit out at the Congress president on Monday, dismissing as “baseless and devoid of fact” his recent remarks that a former Special Protection Group (SPG) chief had to quit because he refused to accept a list of officers handpicked by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Gandhi had on Saturday alleged that educational institutions, the Supreme Court, the Election Commission of India and others bodies are “systematically being captured” by the RSS.
“When Mr (Narendra) Modi came to power, a person from Gujarat was chosen to head the SPG. In a short time, he left the position. He told me that he refused a list of SPG officers handpicked by the RSS, and that is why he was sent home,” Gandhi had said.
The home ministry countered that the force was a professional organization that guarded the serving prime minister, former prime ministers and their families. “The comment reportedly made by Gandhi through the media is baseless, devoid of fact and unfortunate coming from an SPG protectee,” the ministry said.
The ministry said that the officer, Vivek Srivastava, who was the former director, SPG, had categorically “denied having any such conversation with Rahul Gandhi at any point of time”.
Srivastava had interacted with SPG protectees as part of his duties, the ministry said. However, he said that “no talk whatsoever regarding the appointment of a new director, or the reasons for his leaving SPG had taken place”, according to the home ministry.