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Rahul Gandhi launches fresh attack on BJP

Congress leaders says it's a fight between courage and cowardice, and love and hatred

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched a fresh attack on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying he is not afraid of the criticism against him as he asserted that it's a fight between courage and cowardice, and love and hatred.

Gandhi, who is in London as part of a week-long visit to the UK, made the remarks during his interaction with the Indian diaspora, organised by the Indian Overseas Congress here.

"The more they attack me, the better that is for me, because the more I understand... This is a fight between courage and cowardice. It's a fight between respect and disrespect. It's a fight between love and hatred…” Gandhi said.

He said his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' (Unite India March) was demonstrating to the whole country what the real India is about. "What Indian values are? What our religions tell us? What our different languages tell us? What our different cultures tell us (that) we are one country with many, many different ideas. And we have the capability of living together harmoniously without hatred without anger without disrespect. And it's when we do that, we are successful. And that was the message of the yatra (march),” he said.

Attacking the BJP, the 52-year-old former Congress president said: "On the other side, we have an ideology of hatred and violence, a disrespectful ideology that attacks people because of their ideas. And you must have noticed one thing that this is in the nature of BJP and the RSS."

"If you notice the statement of the foreign minister, he said China is much more powerful than us. To think China is more powerful than us, how can I pick a fight with them? At the heart of the ideology is cowardice,” he said, referring to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s reported remarks during an interview.

The BJP has accused Gandhi of maligning India on foreign soil while praising China.

Gandhi's remarks at Cambridge University that Indian democracy is under attack and several politicians, including himself, are under surveillance, has triggered a political slugfest with the BJP accusing him of denigrating India and asking if Gandhi was working as an agent on the payroll of an agency to bring down the country.

Gandhi is also being hosted at an event in the House of Commons complex on behalf of the UK Opposition Labour Party and will address the Chatham House think-tank in London on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and wider geopolitical issues before concluding his visit to Britain.