NEW DELHI: The Congress and BJP were Saturday engaged in a spat over Rahul Gandhi’s conversation with controversial Christian priest George Ponnaiah in Tamil Nadu.
A large number of BJP leaders and cadres tweeted a video in which Rahul Gandhi is seen asking a group, “So, Jesus Christ is a form of God. Is that correct?”
To this a priest responds: “He’s the real God. God reveals him as a man, a human person, not like Shakti.”
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that the video has insulted goddess Shakti ahead of Navratra.
During polls, Gandhi pretends to go to temples but his “anti-Hindu” face comes to the fore after elections are over, he alleged.
“Is this Bharat Jodo, denouncing one religion for the appeasement of the other? This Hindu hatred of Congress in general and Rahul Gandhi, in particular, is no more a clandestine affair,” Patra said.
AICC communications head Jairam Ramesh said BJP’s “hate factory” is sharing tweets about Gandhi which have no links to the audio.
“An atrocious tweet from the BJP hate factory is doing the rounds. It bears no relation whatsoever to what is recorded in the audio. This is typical BJP mischief that has become more desperate after the successful launch of Bharat Jodo Yatra which is evoking such a huge response,” Ramesh tweeted.
“People who were responsible for the killing of Mahatma Gandhi and the murders of people like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh are raising questions! What a morbid joke! Such attempts to damage the spirit of Bharat Jodo Yatra will fail miserably,” Ramesh said in another tweet.
Targeting the Congress, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla, said, “George Ponnaiah who met Rahul Gandhi says ‘Jesus is the only God unlike Shakti (and other Gods)’. This man was arrested for his Hindu hatred earlier - he also said ‘I wear shoes because impurities of Bharat Mata should not contaminate us’. Bharat Jodo with Bharat Todo icons.”