Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed BJP chief Amit Shah’s remarks equating the Opposition parties with animals, saying that the “disrespectful statement” reflected his “mentality” that considered Dalits, tribals, minorities and even his own party leaders “worthless”.
Mysuru : AICC President Rahul Gandhi speaks during his Janashirvada Yatra in Srirangapatna town on Sundday. PTI Photo by Shailendra Bhojak(PTI3_25_2018_000158B)
“Calling the entire Opposition animals…see according to Amit Shah and the basic vision of the BJP, RSS – there are only two non-animals in this country. There is Mr Narendra Modi and there is Mr Amit Shah,” Rahul told reporters here.
“Everybody else as far as they are concerned are animals. That’s fine, that is the way they look at the world. It is a disrespectful statement, but we don’t take what Mr Amit Shah says with too much seriousness,” he said.
Taking a swipe at Shah, the Congress chief said it was the mentality that there were only two or three people in this country “who are worth anything, who understand everything and everybody else is a worthless person”.
“It’s not only Dalits, it’s tribals, it’s minorities. It doesn’t stop there. It’s Mr Advani, Mr Manohar Joshi, even Mr Gadkari, it’s everybody. The thing is that the BJP people internally don’t have guts to say it to you. They say it to us,” he said.
At a rally in Mumbai to mark the BJP’s foundation day on Friday, Shah had equated Opposition parties to ‘snakes’ and mongoose’ and ‘dogs’ and ‘cats’, who are seeking to unite despite their inherent differences to take on the BJP in next year’s Lok Sabha polls.
Later, Shah said his intention was not to equate Opposition parties with animals.
