India is facing a crisis of “having no ideology” at all, Union minister Nitin Gadkari claimed on Monday. “There is no crisis of ideological clashes in the country,” he was quoted as saying by PTI. “The crisis is of having no ideology at all.”

The minister of road transport and highways was speaking at a convocation of the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership in Mumbai.

Criticising leaders who hop from one political party to another, Gadkari said there is no “right or left” when it comes to ideology, and everyone is an opportunist. “Whichever party comes to power, some people join it and then leave it once the party is out of power,” he said.

In an apparent attack on the Congress, he said that some people often talk about social reformers such as Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule or BR Ambedkar “to show their secular line of thoughts”. However, “when it comes to elections, they always demand ticket for their family members and even for their driver, but not for a good party worker,” Gadkari claimed.

“Those who talk of secularism all the time are the one who are mired in communal politics,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader added.