Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman<\/a>, one or the other BJP leader or minister has been harping on the theme every day with PM Modi himself referring to it at the rally on Saturday.<\/p>\nThe ruling party persisted with the attack on Monday, with human resources development minister Prakash Javadekar wondering why Gandhi was \u201ckeeping mum\u201d on the issue. \u201cYou said openly that the Congress is a party of Muslims. Your appeasement policy had damaged the country to a great extent earlier too. The whole history of partition is also a testimony of your policy of appeasement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Muslim intellectuals at the meeting with Rahul Gandhi have denied the comments attributed to him by the Urdu daily Inquilaab.<\/p>\n
Inquilaab reporter Mumtaz Alam Rizwi said he stood by his report, but Gandhi’s comments were nuanced.\u00a0 \u201cI never used the term Muslim party. Rahul Gandhi said Congress is a party of Muslims. He said ‘haan, (yes), because Muslims are weakened, they have become another version of Dalits in the country’,\u201d said Rizwi.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the “Inquilab” published another report claiming its version has been corroborated by the Congress minority cell chief, who strongly denied it, reported NDTV.<\/p>\n
After Rahul Gandhi’s tweet on Tuesday, BJP leader Sambit Patra said, \u201cRahul, You may be standing in line with people at the end, but the people are not standing with you. They know the Congress ‘family rule’ did not do anything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patra insisted that the latter\u2019s statement at a recent meeting of Islamic scholars was proof that the party was bent on championing the Muslim community.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpreading the message that it is a party for Muslims is a deliberate conspiracy by the Congress,\u201d said Patra soon after Gandhi put up a Twitter post stating that his was a party that aims to embrace everybody regardless of religion, caste or beliefs. He also termed the Congress president\u2019s tweet as a \u201cconfession\u201d that his party belonged to Muslims.<\/p>\n
He also claimed that there was \u201ccompetition\u201d between All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Gandhi over who will play politics as per the ideology of Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.<\/p>\n
\u201cRahul Gandhi said in his tweet that he loves all living beings. In reality, he only loves the country\u2019s top seat of power,\u201d Patra added.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Congress had attacked PM Modi for speaking \u201cuntruths\u201d at Azamgarh rally and demanded that PM Modi apologise for calling it a party for Muslim men only, saying the remark showed his \u201csick mentality\u201d.<\/p>\n
Terming the Prime Minister a \u201cpeddler of untruths\u201d, the Congress also challenged him to discuss his allegations against the opposition party in Parliament during the Monsoon Session beginning July 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Minister has continuously hurt the dignity of his office. We strictly oppose what he said yesterday. It shows his sick mentality and twisted mindset,\u201d senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an attempt by him to divide society… His main opposition, the INC, led the national movement, spearheaded the fight for independence… to call it a Muslim party does not behove a PM. He should apologise for his statement. His sick mindset is an issue of national concern. The Prime Minister gives out statements which are wrong as per history and facts and he should apologise for the same,\u201d Anand Sharma said.<\/p>\n
The Congress appeals to the Prime Minister to desist from making \u201cfalse\u201d statements, he added.<\/p>\n
Anand Sharma said PM Modi was the Prime Minister of the entire country and not only of the BJP. He said PM Modi had \u201cless knowledge of history and writes his own history\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sharma also said that while the Congress was against triple talaq, his party wanted to follow the rules of the parliamentary system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Congress does not need certification of nationalism from somebody who are the descendants of not only non-participants of the freedom movement but also active collaborators of the British,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself took up the BJP hype about his Gandhi\u2019s alleged \u2013 and since refuted by many \u2013 \u201cCongress is party of Muslims\u201d remark, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday, July 17, responded by saying Congress stands for the exploited, marginalised and the persecuted, and does not discriminate on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":46923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497],"tags":[111,914,1399,18674,110],"yst_prominent_words":[15044,53051,3813,53050,53052,53045,53048,3688,3715,4170,52842,53049,4023,52934,10380,4396,5951,53053,53046,53047],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2018\/07\/17175656\/Rahul-Gandhi.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46921"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46921"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=46921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}