Congress president Rahul Gandhi targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in the United Kingdom on Friday.

Addressing the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, Gandhi compared the RSS to the Muslim Brotherhood.

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“RSS is trying to change the nature of India. Other parties haven’t tried to capture India’s institutions. RSS’s idea is similar to the idea of Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world,” he said.

He also claimed that the idea of demonetisation came directly from the RSS stables.

“The idea of demonetisation came directly from RSS, bypassed the Finance Minister & RBI, and was planted in Prime Minister’s head,” said Gandhi.

In another interaction, this time with members of the UK Parliament in England, on Friday, the Congress president accused the PM of creating divisions in the society by stifling the voices of the people of India.

“We unify ourselves in India when we express ourselves. This is the contention I have with PM Modi. He does not let India express itself. India’s strength is its diversity, that’s what makes it beautiful,” he said.

Gandhi is the first foreign opposition leader to have been invited to speak at the Grand Committee Room of the UK Parliament. Other prominent speakers who have spoken here are Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev.

He accused the Prime Minister of not having any concrete strategy to deal with Pakistan or China.

“Doklam is not an isolated issue. It was a part of a sequence of events, it was a process. Prime Minister is episodic. He views Doklam as an event. If he was carefully watching the process, he could’ve stopped it,” he said at IISS, adding, “The truth is the Chinese are still in Doklam today.”

He said that there has been a “massive centralisation of power” in the last four years.

At the Grand Committee Room of the UK Parliament, the Congress president said that like his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, he, too, is concerned about the underprivileged and the oppressed. He said that he is always willing to help anyone who is facing oppression at the hands of the ruling government.

“Something I share with my grandmother, I cannot stand someone being disrespected by someone because the person is not in power. I will immediately stand with the person being bullied by a person in power,” he said.

“The centre piece of Indira Gandhi’s and Congress party’s stand is that we will always look to the person standing at the end of the line. We are for everybody but we are biased to the marginalised,” he added.

Reiterating his party’s stand on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Gandhi said, “Businesses in India are screaming ‘please do something about this GST’. So you react to when someone is in pain.”

Gandhi also stressed on the importance of listening to everyone.

“India is the voices of a billion people. What we need to do is, listen to as many of them as we can and help structure that,” he said.

The 47-year-old Congress chief’s criticism of the ruling government in the UK follows his speech at a function organised by Indian Overseas Congress in Berlin on Thursday where he accused the BJP-RSS of dividing the nation and spreading hatred.

Gandhi said while long speeches were being given by ministers of the ruling government, hatred was being generated, farmers continued to commit suicide and youngsters were unable to see a future for themselves.

“The Congress belongs to all, works for everyone and our work is to spread the thought of unity in diversity. Today, the government in India is working differently,” he said.

Gandhi said India’s competition was with China and jobs would either go there or come here. The Congress chief once again claimed that while China gave jobs to 50,000 people in 24 hours, India gave employment to only 450 people in the same period.

Gandhi arrived in the UK following a two-day visit to Germany.