The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday called out Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his remarks on BJP president Amit Shah. Gandhi had referred to Shah as a murder accused during his address on the second and final day of the 84th Congress plenary at New Delhi.

Responding to the accusation by the 47-year-old Gandhi scion, BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman, who is also the Union Defence Minister, called Gandhi’s speech the “rhetoric of a loser and devoid of substance”.

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“Rahul Gandhi is still out on bail on a criminal conspiracy of fraud in National Herald Case and talks about an allegation which has been cleared by the court about our national president Amit Shah,” she said at a press conference held at the new building of the party headquarters in the national capital.

While comparing Congress to the Pandavas and BJP to the Kauravas from the Mahabharata, Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP “will accept a man accused of murder as the president” in a reference to Amit Shah.

Read More: Rahul Gandhi compares Congress to Pandavas, BJP to Kauravas

In her response, Sitharaman held the Congress solely responsible for the anti-Sikhs riots. She said that the grand old party is “a party that cried over the dead bodies of terrorists” and one that questions the “fundamental existence of Lord Ram”.

“They never lose the opportunity to hit at freedom fighters. They hate everyone else because they like to keep their family high as the only one responsible for the freedom of India. Top on the list (of their hate) is Veer Savarkar,” Sitharaman said while drawing attention to the removal of a plaque of the freedom fighter in Cellular jail by a Congress leader.

Sitharaman asked if Rahul Gandhi has reviewed the farmer suicides in Karnataka.

She also raised the point on Gandhi’s claim that the Congress is winning elections one after the other.

“Even if the two by-elections that we lost in Uttar Pradesh – and on which the CM of UP has graciously said that he has learned lessons learned from it – let us not forget that Congress has lost deposits in both seats (Gorakhpur and Phulpur). And the Congress president claims his party is winning elections one after the other,” she said.

At the plenary today, top leaders such as former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former union finance minister P Chidambaram and others spoke at length against the BJP and the Modi government’s policies while asserting that people have faith in the Congress.