External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday warned that the comments made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the United States about the Narendra Modi-led Union government will have “big implications” for India, ANI reported.
“In any democracy, there will be arguments,” Jaishankar said while addressing a gathering at Delhi University’s Aryabhatta College. “There will be differences, there will be diversity and opinions. And it should be there, there is nothing wrong with it. It is concerning, when they take India’s problem out in the world and then invite people from outside to come and interfere.”
The foreign minister also said that allowing the world to intervene in India’s issues would mean bringing in “bigger problems” for the country.
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On Thursday, Jaishankar had said that Gandhi has a habit of criticising India and commenting on domestic politics whenever he travels out of the country.
“There is democracy in the country,” he added. “You have your politics, we have ours. I have no problem with whatever is done within the country, but I do not think taking national politics out of the country is in national interests. I do not think it will enhance his credibility.”
Union Home Minister Amit Shah also claimed at a rally in Gujarat’s Patan on Saturday that Congress leaders have continued to make “anti-India” remarks on foreign soil. “Any patriotic person should only discuss Indian politics on Indian soil,” he said. “It does not suit the leader of any party to go abroad and discuss the country’s politics and criticise the country. Rahul baba, the people of the country are watching all this closely”
During his six-day-long visit to the US, Gandhi had said that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh, are incapable of looking into the future and can only talk about the past.
“He [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] is trying to drive the car, the Indian car and he only looks in the rear-view mirror,” Gandhi had said while addressing a gathering of the Indian diaspora in New York on June 4.
At another event in San Francisco on May 31, the former Congress chief had said that all the instruments that Opposition parties need to do politics in India are controlled by the BJP and the RSS.
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