Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat insulted freedom fighters as well as every Indian citizen by claiming that India’s “true independence was established” only when the Ram temple in Ayodhya was inaugurated.

Gandhi said Bhagwat’s comments, made at an event in Indore on Monday, amounted to treason and that in any other country, he would have been arrested and tried. The RSS chief made the comment nine days before the first anniversary of the inauguration of the Ram Temple on January 22.

“It is quite symbolic that yesterday, the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh said that India never achieved true independence in 1947, but rather when the Ram Mandir was built,” Gandhi said on Wednesday while addressing Congress members at an event in Delhi to inaugurate the Congress’ new headquarters.

“Mohan Bhagwat has the audacity to inform the nation every two–three days what he thinks about the independence movement and the Constitution,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha further said. “What he said yesterday is treason because he stated that the Constitution is invalid, [the] fight against the British was invalid…In any other country, he would be arrested and tried.”

Bhagwat had said on Monday: “The true independence of India, which had faced many centuries of persecution, was established on that day [when the Ram temple was inaugurated].” He said that before the event, the country “had independence, but it had not been established”, ANI reported.

The Ram temple was inaugurated in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22, 2024, even though work on the temple complex was still underway. The construction of the temple is expected to be completed later this year.

The Ram temple is being built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot on which the deity Ram had been born. The incident had triggered communal riots across the country.

In his address on Wednesday, Gandhi further remarked the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS, its ideological parent, had a “completely different vision of India” than that of the Congress.

“They want India to be run by a shady, hidden, secret society,” Gandhi said. “They want India to be run by one man, and they want to crush the voice of the Dalits, the voice of the minorities, the voice of the backward castes, and the tribals. This is their agenda.”

‘BJP, RSS have captured nearly all institutions’

Rahul Gandhi also remarked on Wednesday that the Congress was not engaged in a fair fight with the ruling party.

“If you believe we are fighting against a political organisation called BJP and RSS, they have captured almost every institution in our country,’ he said. “We are now fighting not just the BJP and RSS, but the Indian State itself.”

Gandhi accused the Election Commission of being opaque in providing information about the Maharashtra elections in November, which the ruling BJP-led coalition won by a landslide.

“The sudden appearance of almost one crore new voters between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra is problematic,” the Congress leader said, adding that the poll panel refused to provide a voters’ list with the names and addresses of those who voted in the Assembly election.

Last month, the Congress alleged that there was an “unprecedented increase” of around 47 lakh voters in the electoral rolls between July and November. The Opposition party also claimed that an “implausible” 76 lakh votes were cast in the last hour of polling.

However, on December 24, the Election Commission responded saying that it was a misconception to consider 5pm voter turnout data, at the time that polling centres close, as a final tally. It rejected the Congress’ allegations of arbitrary addition and deletion of voter names from the electoral rolls in Maharashtra.

Gandhi’s remarks on Wednesday elicited sharp reactions from leaders of the Hindutva party.

“Hidden no more, Congress’ ugly truth now stands exposed by their own leader,” BJP chief JP Nadda remarked on X. “It is not a secret that Mr Gandhi and his ecosystem have close links with Urban Naxals and the Deep State who want to defame, demean and discredit India.”

BJP social media cell chief Amit Malviya claimed that Gandhi had “declared an open war against the Indian State itself”.

“This is straight out of George Soros’s playbook,” Malviya said, referring to the Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist whom the BJP has accused of orchestrating a conspiracy to destabilise India.