BJP targets Rahul Gandhi for his reaction to journalist's question over 'insult' to OBCs

New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday criticised Rahul Gandhi for his "arrogance" after he chided a journalist at his press conference over a question and asked if this is the faith he has for democratic institutions like the media.

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"This is the kind of respect Rahul Gandhi has for all democratic institutions. Why does he hate Other Backward Classes so much. He became so rattled just because journalists asked him questions about the insult to OBCs," BJP chief spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni said.

BJP I-T department head Amit Malviya tweeted, "Rahul Gandhi, when asked a straight question on insulting the OBCs, calls the journalist a BJP spokesperson, asks him to wear a BJP badge, before he answers him. Last time he did something similar in Amethi, he lost the election there. OBC community is enraged at this defiance." He also posted a video clip of the exchange.

Malviya dubbed it as Gandhi's "arrogance".

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia claimed that Gandhi was ill-prepared to answer the question and instead made "scurrilous" comments against the journalist. Gandhi showed his contempt for the media and tried to destroy it with his conduct, he claimed.

The BJP has accused the former Congress president of insulting OBCs with his "Modi surname" remarks in 2019 over which a Surat court convicted him, leading to his disqualification from the Lok Sabha.

Gandhi has denied the charge and claimed that the BJP has been making such claims to distract people's attention from the Adani issue, something he has been raising regularly.

At a press conference earlier in the day, he struck a combative note and said he would continue to defend the country's democracy even if he is disqualified from Parliament for life or jailed and claimed that a "panic-stricken" government has handed the Opposition a "big weapon" by disqualifying him.

Responding to media queries on the BJP's charge of insult to OBCs, Gandhi described these questions as peddling of BJP's agenda and asked if they were posed following orders from the ruling dispensation.