Union minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani on Friday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his party's unit meeting with Britain's opposition Labour Party leaders and discussing Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union Minister for Women and Child Welfare taunted that Mr Gandhi had become a "problem for his own party".
Ms Irani, who defeated Mr Gandhi in Amethi in the national election, said he would be given a befitting reply by the people of Maharashtra in the October 21 assembly polls. Addressing a press conference at the BJP office in Mumbai, Ms Irani called Mr Gandhi's loss from Amethi as the people's answer to his support for the "tukde tukde gang" (nation-breaking forces).
"Now he will get an answer in Maharashtra too. If he is coming to the state to campaign for elections, he should answer why the Congress visited the UK to discuss the Kashmir issue and malign the country," she said.
The BJP has taken strong exception to a tweet by British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that he met representatives of the Congress's UK unit and discussed the "human rights situation" in Jammu and Kashmir.
BJP chief Amit Shah lashed out at Mr Gandhi over the Labour Party meet. At a rally in Buldhana district, Mr Shah said, "Rahul Gandhi must apologise for this as it is against India's stated stand that there will be no third party role in Kashmir and the state is India's internal matter. Rahul Gandhi should clarify his stand on the issue."
The Indian Overseas Congress UK, meanwhile, in a tweet said the meeting with Mr Corbyn was to condemn the Labour Party's resolution on Kashmir and to reiterate that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India.
