Ahead of his rally in Assam’s Guwahati, which was the centre of protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a counterattack at the BJP, which accused him of “lying” about detention centres in the state.

“You saw my tweet? I have shared Narendra Modi’s speech where he is saying there are no detention centres in India and in the same video there are visuals of a detention centre. You decide who is lying,” Rahul Gandhi told reporters at the party headquarters in Delhi.

Gandhi further compared the new citizenship law and the proposed NRC to the BJP government’s demonetisation move in 2016.

“This sham (Citizenship Amended Act and NRC) is notebandi number 2,” he said adding that “all the poor people will be expected to prove their citizenship”. “They will be the worst hit,” he asserted.

Earlier on Friday too, Gandhi had attacked the government’s decision to implement NRC and NPR saying, “Whether NRC or NPR, it is a tax on the poor, like demonetisation was a tax on poor. It is an attack on the poor, now the poor is asking how will they get jobs?”

The ruling BJP, under fire from the opposition over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC), and National Population Register (NPR), on Thursday slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his comment “PM of RSS lied to Mother India” on the issue of detention centres in the country.

Earlier, seeking to contradict Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi posted on his Twitter handle a video showing a road leading to an alleged detention centre in Assam. “The Prime Minister of RSS lies to Bharat Mata,” Gandhi captioned his post with the hashtag ‘#lies, lies, lies.’

At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra hit out at the Congress leader’s Tweet against Modi. He called Rahul Gandhi ‘chieftain of liars’. He charged Rahul with spreading lies about detention centres. He said most of the detention centres the Congress party was trying to draw attention to came up during the UPA regime led by it.

In a bid to clarify the PM’s remark on detention centres, Patra pointed out that Modi had, in fact, said that no detention centre had been set up to detain Indian Muslims identified as illegal residents in India as per the NRC.

The BJP spokesperson also asked Rahul Gandhi to apologise to the country for spreading falsehood about the detention centres.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is set to lead a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Guwahati today.

The Assam Congress unit is preparing hard to make it a success as the state has seen massive protests against the CAA in recent days.

The public meeting is due at Khanapara Veterinary Field and has been named ‘Ashtitwa Rakhyar Samabekh.’

Rahul Gandhi will visit the family of teenager Sam Stafford who was killed in police firing against the new citizenship law. The 17-year-old Stafford was a drummer and a budding musician has become a symbol of anti-CAA protests.

The Congress leader will also visit the family of Dipanjal Das in Kamrup who also died in police firing during the agitation.