New Delhi : Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday hit out at Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for drawing a parallel between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), saying that the grand old party was afflicted by ‘flawed vision’.
“Statement of a senior Congress leader comparing @RSSorg with a terrorist outfit is shocking. Such mindset shows total ideological bankruptcy,” Chouhan said in a series of tweets.
Asserting that the Congress was afflicted by flawed vision, he added that the grand old party can never understand the high ideals of RSS, whose volunteers are ‘selfless and true patriotic’ heroes of India.
“Sadly enough, Congress is destroying rich traditions of healthy politics. Even the most bitter critics of @RSSorg never drew such comparison,” the Chief Minister said in another tweet.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Digvijay Singh came out in full support of Azad, saying the RSS and ISS are the two faces of the same coin.
“I totally endorse and support Ghulam Nabi Azad when he condemned ISIS as strongly as he condemned RSS. They are two faces of the same coin,” Singh tweeted.
Azad had yesterday kicked a row after he sought to draw a parallel between the RSS and ISIS, evoking sharp responses from the Hindutva outfit and the BJP, which demanded an apology from him.
“So, we oppose organisations like ISIS, the way we oppose RSS. If those among us in Islam too do wrong things, they are no way less than RSS,” the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said at an event organised by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.
The RSS in response slammed Azad, saying that such a remark showed intellectual bankruptcy of the grand old party.
“Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad comparing ISIS with RSS, exhibits the intellectual bankruptcy of Congress,” RSS leader J Nand Kumar said at a press conference.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning to give a calling attention notice against Azad in the Rajya Sabha. (ANI)