Rahul Gandhi, at an event at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London said that External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj has no job except spending a lot of time working on people’s visas.
“You notice one thing, everybody says that it is a great thing that India’s Foreign Minister spends a lot of her time working on visas. Do you realise what that statement means? It means the Foreign Minister has nothing better to do than get people visas. So, only there is the monopoly of the Foreign Ministry, and the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) has monopoly over the Foreign Ministry,” he said.
“Sushma Swaraj really has nothing to do, though she is quite a capable lady. If you actually give her the power to do something, she could probably break that monopoly (in the ministry). In India…if you’re seeing something that is not scaling in India, just look at the monopoly that is not letting that happen,” he stated.
“If you bring in new voices, if you bring in business, if you bring in other think tanks and give them actual power in the Foreign Ministry, it’ll scale immediately,” he added.
Earlier, he compared the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to the Muslim brotherhood on Friday, after which the BJP demanded an immediate apology.
“The RSS is trying to change the nature of India. There is no other organisation in India that wants to capture India’s institutions… What we are dealing with is a completely new idea. It’s an old idea being reborn. It is similar to the idea that exists in the Arab world of the Muslim Brotherhood. The idea is that one ideology should run through every institution and one idea should crush all other ideas,” he said.
BJP’s spokesperson Sambit Patra hit back saying, “Do you even know what the Muslim brotherhood is? It is declared a terrorist organisation in a number of countries. You are comparing it with the RSS and BJP. Rahul, you have no maturity, no understanding of India. You have no leadership quality. You have no facet. All that you have is hatred towards PM Modi. You hate PM Modi, BJP and RSS. And out of this hatred, you make irresponsible, immature statements. Have you heard yourself ever,” she said and demanded that he “apologise from London”.
