The Congress on Monday claimed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Pakistan are on the “same page in propagating hatred, violence and division among people”, PTI reported. At a press conference ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting in Maharashtra’s Sewagram, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala also drew parallels between the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre and the British colonial rulers.

Surjewala said: “Pakistan, like the RSS, supports violence and it practices hatred and divisiveness. It [the RSS] also supports violence. The Congress and people of India do not support this.”

On Sunday, Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations Saad Warraich claimed that “RSS centres of fascism” were the “breeding ground for terrorism in the region”. “The claims of religious superiority are perpetrated through straight patronage all across India,” Warrich told the United Nations General Assembly after India criticised Pakistan.

Surjewala said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh does not represent any section of society. “When Gandhiji and the Congress were fighting the British, the RSS kept quiet,” Surjewala said. “It believes in violence and its base is polarisation, hatred and discrimination.”

The Congress said the BJP and the British colonial rulers followed a “divide and rule policy” that supported the siphoning of India’s resources abroad. “Like the British, the BJP wants to curtail democratic principles and centralise power with [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi,” Surjewala said. “Like the British, BJP’s DNA is anti-farmer and it is against the oppressed, Dalits, tribals, backward communities, minorities and women.”

The Opposition party’s criticism follows repeated attacks from the Bharatiya Janata Party that the Congress and Pakistan shared a wish to oust Prime Minister Narendra Modi from power. Bharatiya Janata Party National President Amit Shah had suggested a possibility of the Congress working on an “international mahagathbandhan [grand international alliance]”, the news agency reported.

Surjewala took a veiled jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by claiming that those in power “swear by Mahatma Gandhi for optics and photo opportunities”.

The location of the Congress Working Committee’s scheduled meeting at Mahadev Bhavan is almost 300 metres away from the Gandhi Ashram in Sewagram. Surjewala said a Congress Working Committee meeting was held at the same site in 1942 to “give the call of ‘Quit India’ and the party will now pledge to launch a campaign to free the country from loot-jhoot-bhay-batware [scams, lies, fear, divisiveness]”.