‘…tarnish India's image’: Jagdeep Dhankhar's veiled jab at Rahul Gandhi

Jagdeep Dhankhar added that leaders should strive to make the country better instead of condemning it on foreign land, in an apparent swipe at Rahul Gandhi.

Launching a veiled attack on Rahul Gandhi for his controversial ‘democracy under attack’ speech in London, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said it is hurtful when people try to bring down a ‘rising India’ in a country abroad. According to news agency ANI, Dhankhar was speaking at a function in Delhi to celebrate social reformer Swami Dayanand Saraswati's birth anniversary.

Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar (L) and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (ANI,PTI)

Dhankhar said, "It is painful when some people among us try to tarnish the image of a rising India on foreign land. This has to be stopped."

Without explicitly naming Gandhi, Dhankhar added that leaders should strive to make the country better instead of condemning it on foreign land.

"Any person, who has the best interests of the country at heart, will always speak about the strides that India is making and where it should improve. I believe that our leaders should work on addressing the shortcomings or areas where we are lacking instead of criticising the country on foreign soil," the Vice President said.

He also invoked Swami Dayanand’s saying on Indian independence and resistance to colonisation to express his displeasure with such comments, which he said were to spoil India’s global image.

Gandhi’s Cambridge University speech had sparked a furore after he said that the opposition was under ‘constant pressure’ of being slapped with unreasonable criminal cases. He added that the fundamental factors in a democracy - Parliament, free press, judiciary - were facing restrictions.

Describing a picture of himself being held by police, the Congress leader said that leaders of opposition parties were ‘jailed for merely standing and discussing issues in front of the Parliament House’. “You have also heard of the attacks on minorities and the press. You get a sense of what is going on,” he said.

The BJP has been demanding an apology from Gandhi for his ‘disparaging’ statements on democracy under prime minister Narendra Modi, which led to the washout of the second half of the Budget session of Parliament, as the opposition pressed for a joint parliamentary probe into the allegations by Hindenburg Research against the Adani group.

(With inputs from ANI)