"Doing This For 10 Years": Priyanka Gandhi On PM's "Hindu Or Muslim" Note

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra - campaigning on behalf of her brother and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Raebareli - also accused the BJP of practicing a "politics of religion".

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "I never said Hindu or Muslim..." clarification, declaring, "This is exactly what he (Mr Modi) has been doing for 10 years. He cannot (now) start denying speeches he has given... he has given speeches in front of the whole world. How can he suddenly turn around and say he has not said those things?"

Mrs Gandhi Vadra - campaigning fiercely on behalf of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in the party's stronghold of Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli - also accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been seen as making religious issues a poll platform, of practicing a "politics of religion".

The sharp counterattack comes a day after Mr Modi said his speech last month in Rajasthan's Banswara - in which he referred to Muslims and presented the Congress' plans for an economic survey as a move to "redistribute wealth to infiltrators" - was about poor families and not religion.