The BJP today launched a sharp attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after he said the Opposition was fighting not just the BJP, but the Indian State. Union Health Minister and BJP president JP Nadda said the Congress’s “ugly truth now stands exposed”. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked why Mr Gandhi carried a copy of the Constitution if he thought the Opposition was fighting the State.

Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the Congress’s new headquarters in Delhi, Mr Gandhi slammed the BJP and its ideological parent RSS.

“Our ideology like the RSS ideology is thousands of years old and it has been fighting the RSS ideology for thousands of years. Do not think that we are fighting a fair fight. There is no fairness in this. If you believe that we are fighting a political organisation called the BJP or RSS, you have not understood what is going on. The BJP and the RSS have captured every single institution of our country.