Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s comments pitching for the unity of Hindus at a speech at the World Hindu Congress in United States’ Chicago drew the ire of the Opposition on Saturday.

The Hindutva group’s leader urged Hindus to unite and work together for the development of society, PTI reported. He said Hindus had no aspiration for world dominance. “If a lion is alone, wild dogs can invade and destroy the lion. We must not forget that,” Bhagwat said on Friday. “We want to make the world better. We have no aspiration of dominance. Our influence is not a result of conquest or colonisation.”

The event in Chicago commemorated the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s historic speech at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in the United States city in 1893.

Congress leader Sachin Sawant said the RSS is known for its hatred towards other castes and religions. “It is shameful of the RSS chief to describe any religion in this way,” PTI quoted Sawant as saying.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra said the RSS’s ideology was anti-Hindu. “The ideology of RSS and BJP is anti-Hindu and they only know how to do caste politics,” Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Nawab Malik said. “The day they stop dividing Hindus on the basis of caste, every Hindu and people from other religions as well will be lions.”

All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi said the RSS was demeaning others with the comparison. “The RSS is trying to demean people by calling others dogs and assuming themselves as the tiger,” Owaisi said. “This has been the language of RSS for the last 90 years and the people will reject such crass and crude language.”

Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar claimed that Bhagwat was referring to Opposition parties when he used the word dogs and condemned it. “I condemn this mansikta [mentality] of Mohan Bhagwat that he has referred to Opposition parties in the country as dogs,” Ambedkar said, according to PTI.

Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Ram Madhav defended Bhagwat’s statement saying that the RSS chief was speaking for the welfare of Hindu society and India.