New Delhi, October 3(HS): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday strongly condemned remarks made by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Colombia, accusing him of repeatedly maligning India on foreign soil and deliberately ignoring the nation’s achievements.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, party spokesperson Dr. Sudhanshu Trivedi said that in the past 24 to 36 hours, the country witnessed two starkly different scenes. “On one hand, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the world’s largest cultural organisation dedicated to national unity and cultural uplift for the last 100 years, marked its centenary.On this historic occasion Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a commemorative coin which, perhaps for the first time in independent India’s history, carries the image of Bharat Mata. On the other hand, in the same 24 hours, we saw another spectacle—an organisation founded 140 years ago by a British officer, A.O. Hume, once controlled by British secretaries and for the last century dominated by a single family, now reduced to desperation. Its scion, who increasingly behaves like a leader of anti-India forces, went abroad yet again to disparage our country,” Trivedi said.
He noted that Gandhi, while speaking at Colombia’s EIA University, claimed democracy in India was under attack. “This is not surprising,” Trivedi remarked, “because Rahul Gandhi has a long history of tarnishing India’s image overseas. On March 6, 2023, at Chatham House in London, he asked why the so-called guardians of democracy, America and Europe, were silent. Can there be a greater insult to India?”
Trivedi pointed out that Gandhi consistently ignores global recognition of India’s achievements under Prime Minister Modi. “In December 2024, Cambridge University conducted a full-fledged study on India’s digital transformation under Modi’s leadership.
Similarly, a Stanford University report placed India at the top in global AI skill diffusion. But when abroad, Rahul Gandhi conveniently overlooks these facts and only makes baseless accusations,” he said.
Quoting global perspectives, the BJP leader added, “In January 2023, Global Times itself admitted that India has rapidly transformed its economy with sweeping structural reforms, making it far stronger. Why doesn’t Rahul Gandhi see this?”
Trivedi further questioned Gandhi’s acceptance at foreign platforms. “What unique ability does he possess that foreign universities invite him, while within his own party there are many far more intellectual leaders who never receive such invitations? Moreover, no university in India invites him. Why is it that only institutions overseas call Rahul Gandhi? This is a question that cannot be ignored,” he asserted.
At EIA University, Gandhi had remarked that India faces its biggest threat from an assault on democracy. He said the country’s diversity of religions, traditions, and languages finds space under a democratic system, but that system is now “under siege.” He also argued that India cannot sustain itself by suppressing its people like China does.
Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar