Rahul Gandhi a national embarrassment, not Manohar Parrikar: BJP

New Delhi: Hitting out at the Congress party for calling Manohar Parrikar a 'national embarrassment' after the Defence Minister gave credit for the recently conducted surgical strike to the teachings of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday launched a veiled attack on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and said the grand old party's "youth leader" has been an embarrassment for India endless times.

BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao told ANI that they do not need suggestions from the Congress party as to who should be the Defence Minister of India, as they have issues with the ruling dispensation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's fight against terrorism.

"Manish Tewari knows better about national embarrassment because his party and his party's youth leader has been an embarrassment for our nation a lot many times," Rao said.

"Before accusing the Defence Minister of our country, Congress party should think once. Today also, Congress party has issues with the ruling government and Narendra Modi for their fight against terrorism," he said, adding that the Congress party should answer as to why they have issues with the Centre fighting terrorism and why "do they speak the language of Pakistan."

Following Parrikar's statement giving credit of the recently conducted surgical strikes to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) teachings, the Congress fired yet another salvo at the Defence Minister and said that the latter is an embarrassment to the nation and is unworthy of his post.

"The Defence Minister is very quick to credit everyone from the mythology to the RSS for the operations along the LoC. This leads to two inescapable conclusions, number one: Manohar Parrikar does not deserve to be the Defence Minister of India, this man is a national embarrassment; number two: that the operation along the LoC were unfortunately targeted towards domestic consumption rather than changing the behaviour of the deep state in Pakistan," Manish Tewari said.

"The problem is that where the government has to speak it is keeping silent. And the Goa declaration of BRICS is perhaps the most sterling example of the government's absolute and abject failure. Despite all the rhetoric and the laser sharp speeches on terror and isolating Pakistan what you have is one sundry remark. One little generic remark in almost a 20 paragraph Goa declaration and what does it say, "We strongly condemn the recent several attacks against some BRICS countries including that in India." I read the statement for the second time, we have an attack in Uri, we lose security personnel and the government is not even able to convince its interlocutors that it was a terrorist strike," said Tewari.

Speaking at an event in Ahmedabad, Parrikar had said on the strikes,"Maybe the RSS teachings were there, but this was very different kind of combination, a Prime Minister from Mahatma Gandhi's state and a Defence Minister from Goa".