Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday launched a fierce attack on Defense minister Manohar Parrikar over his remarks against Bollywood actor Aamir Khan’s comments on increasing intolerance in the country last year.

Rahul Gandhi tweeted,

RSS & Parrikarji want to teach everyone a lesson. Here's a lesson for you: hate is the preserve of the coward and it never wins

— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) July 31, 2016

Congress, the main opposition party, alleged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of concerted conspiracy against Dalits, minorities, writers, actors and whoever dissent against the government and questioned whether Defense minister’s job is to protect India from external countries such as Pakistan to threaten fellow countrymen.

Ealier, on Saturday, defense minister Parrikar during the book launch of a Marathi journalist-author Nitin Gokhale’s book on Siachin, without taking any names said, “One actor had said that his wife wants to live out of India. It was an arrogant statement. If I am poor and my house is small, I will still love my house and always dream to make a bungalow out of it.”

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Responding to the criticism, Parrikar said on Sunday that he never used the word lesson and he meant that, “You have to build pressure, you have to build opinion that people who love their country should not be silent on these issues.”

At an event in Jabalpur, defense minister said, “Those who speak against the country, there has to be a public opinion about that. I was not pointing out at anyone specifically. I was speaking only about those who want bad for this country. I was not talking about freedom of speech.”

In November 2015, at Ramnath Goenka Awards, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan while speaking on increasing intolerance in the country said, “When I sit at home and talk to Kiran, she says 'Should we move out of India?' That's a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day. That does indicate that there is this sense of growing disquiet, there is growing despondency apart from alarm. You feel why this is happening, you feel low. That sense does exist in me.”   

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By Prajakt K.