BJP slams Rahul Gandhi for allegedly seeking 'foreign interference'

Senior Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi's recent comments in London allegedly seeking "foreign intervention" in saving Indian democracy have triggered a fresh row back in India. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has termed Gandhi's comments "shameful" and accused him of lying about India on foreign soil. The saffron party also said that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge owed a clarification over Gandhi's comments.

• Gandhi—who is in the United Kingdom—made several comments against the BJP, including at Cambridge University where he claimed Indian democracy was under attack and many politicians, including himself, were under surveillance.
• Ahead of the 2024 general election, Congress is on the offensive against the BJP over issues like the alleged Chinese intrusion, the BBC documentary on Narendra Modi, and the Adani Group-Hindenburg Research controversy.

Recently, Gandhi allegedly told a gathering at Cambridge University that India's democracy was under threat and urged Western nations, such as the United States, to intervene. "Why Europe and the US—the defenders of democracies—were oblivious of how a huge chunk of democracy in India has come undone?" he reportedly said in the UK. However, Congress said Gandhi's comments had been manipulated against India's interests.

In response to Gandhi's comments, BJP leader and spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad stated, "BJP would like to emphatically state with great agony that Rahul Gandhi, in his speeches, has sought to shame India's democracy, polity, parliament, political system, and judicial system." He said that Congress chief Kharge and the party leader Sonia Gandhi owed a clarification on these comments.

"Rahul Gandhi wants that Europe and US should interfere to save democracy. No matter whose government it is, we have been strongly against any interference in our internal affairs. No foreign country must intervene in India's internal affairs," Prasad further said.

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla also slammed Gandhi and described his words as a "betrayal of Bharat." Poonawalla claimed that Gandhi has gone beyond all bounds in his animosity toward Prime Minister Modi and the BJP. He called Gandhi a constant cynic and seller of "propaganda" and questioned whether Gandhi's words were not an assault on India's sovereignty and an insult to its people.

Earlier, addressing the Indian diaspora in Hounslow, Gandhi stepped up his attack on the BJP-led Centre. "The government doesn't allow the concept of opposition in the country. The same thing happens in Parliament," he said. "The fact that Chinese sitting inside our territory when we raise these questions, we are not allowed to raise them in the house...in fact, it's a shame," Gandhi added.

Gandhi is on a week-long trip to the United Kingdom, where he will also attend closed-door discussions on big data and democracy, as well as India-China ties, at Cambridge University. He also participated in an event in the UK's Houses of Parliament complex on Monday organized by the UK Opposition Labour Party's veteran MP of Indian origin, Virendra Sharma.