Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called on Opposition parties to join hands to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. He made the appeal while addressing the Sanjhi Virasat Bachao (Save Our Heritage) conclave in New Delhi, organised by rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav. Politicians from the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) were also present at the event.

Gandhi took on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Narendra Modi government. “There are two ways of looking at the nation,” he said. “Some say this country belongs to them. Others say they belong to this country. This is the difference between the Congress and the RSS.”

He said the RSS had beaten up Dalits in Gujarat and was trying to undermine the Constitution to promote its nationalist agenda. “The Constitution says ‘one man, one vote’, but the RSS wants to destroy the rights guaranteed to the people by the Constitution,” he alleged. “It wants to amend it.”

Gandhi also said that Modi’s “Make In India” initiative had failed. He accused the prime minister of lying to the citizens. “Modi says he wants Swachh Bharat, I say we want ‘Sach [honest] Bharat.’”

The conclave is seen as Yadav’s show of strength against the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar. On August 12, Yadav was replaced with Ramchandra Prasad Singh as the JD(U) leader in the Rajya Sabha. This came a day after the party suspended Rajya Sabha MP Ali Anwar Ansari for attending a meeting of Opposition parties convened by Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

Hostilities between Yadav and Bihar Chief Minister Kumar increased after the latter broke away from the grand alliance with the Congress and the RJD and joined hands with the BJP to form government in the state. Yadav had openly voiced his concerns with the political shift in Bihar.

On Wednesday, the JD(U) had suspended 21 leaders, believed to be Yadav loyalists, for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities.