New Delhi: Hitting back at the BJP over its allegations against him that he defamed the country abroad, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who maligned India's achievements since Independence, NDTV reports.
BJP had accused Rahul of smearing India's name in his address at Cambridge University out of continuous electoral defeats.
Rahul told reporters at an event organised by the Indian Journalists' Association on Saturday that outside India, PM Modi had claimed once that nothing has happened in India in the past 60 to 70 years.
He said that he remembered Modi saying there was a lost decade, unlimited corruption in the country etc. He continued that he had never defamed the country, was not interested in it and never will do such an act. The BJP likes to twist everything he says, Rahul said.
According to the Congress leader, the person who defames India outside the country is none other than her Prime Minister. He said that Modi had insulted India since its Independence, insulting every "Indian parent, grandparent".
Last year in South Korea, PM Modi said that once there was a time when people used to regret being born in India and leave the country for better opportunities. But after his government came to power, he implied, those who left the country were ready to come back as the mood changed.
In Cambridge, Rahul Gandhi said that democracy is under attack in India and many politicians are under surveillance, including himself. He furthered that there are five aspects of the attack on democracy which are capture and control of the media and judiciary, surveillance and intimidation, coercion by federal law, attacks on minorities, Dalits and tribals, and finally, muzzling dissent.