Rahul Gandhi is "anti-temple", says Sushil Modi

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi 7 December said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was anti-temple and that his visits to the shrines in Gujarat, sporting a "tilak", and talks of his wearing a "janeu", which is a sacred thread that Brahmins wear, were aimed at hiding this.

"When the country's first president, Rajendra Prasad, a son of Bihar's soil, had performed a puja at the Somnath temple in Gujarat, the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a proponent of pseudo-secularism, had expressed his strong disapproval," the senior BJP leader tweeted.

"Guided by the same ideology, Congress leader Kapil Sibal is now arguing against the Ram temple before the Supreme Court," he said, referring to the former Union minister representing the Sunni Waqf Board, a party to the Ayodhya title dispute, in the Supreme Court.

Yesterday, Mr Sibal had appealed to the Supreme Court for deferring the hearing on the title suit till after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

However, the Congress has distanced itself from Mr Sibal's stand.

Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi, who is all set to become the Congress president, Sushil Modi said he was trying to "hide his anti-temple face by resorting to tilak-janeu and temple tourism".

Mr Gandhi's aggressive campaign in poll-bound Gujarat has drawn the ire of many NDA leaders. JD(U) president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had recently alleged that the Congress' poll strategy in Gujarat was veering towards extremism.

The 182-member Gujarat Assembly will go to the polls in two phases on 9 and 14 December and the counting of votes will be taken up on 18 December.

-PTI