Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the BJP is proposing the “elimination of the Constitution” that guarantees equal rights to all, and vowed that the opposition would create a system of resistance capable of removing the party from power.

Speaking at the Hertie School in Berlin last week, Rahul also alleged that the BJP has launched a full-scale assault on India’s democratic framework by capturing institutions and using them as tools to consolidate political power, which he said the opposition is fighting against.

In an hour-long video released by the Congress on Monday, Rahul said India’s vast and complex democracy is a global asset, and that any “assault” on the country’s democratic system amounts to an attack on democracy worldwide.

“What the BJP is proposing essentially is the elimination of the Constitution. Elimination of the idea of equality between states, elimination of the idea of equality between languages and religions, elimination of the idea of the central core of the Constitution, which is that every individual will have the same value,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said while addressing students at the Hertie School.

In the video titled ‘Politics is the art of listening’, Rahul said that when democracy comes under attack, the opposition must devise ways to counter it rather than merely pointing out flaws in elections.

“We will deal with it, and we will create a method, a system of opposition resistance that will succeed. But, we're not fighting the BJP. You have to understand that we're fighting their capture of the Indian institutional structure,” he said.

Responding to questions from students, Rahul claimed that the institutional framework in India has been weaponised.

“We fundamentally believe that there is a problem with the electoral machinery in India. The second thing is that there is a wholesale capture of our institutional framework. There is a full-scale assault taking place on the institutional framework of our country,” he claimed.

The Congress leader said there is an atmosphere in India where institutions are not performing the roles they are meant to perform.

Rahul noted that while European countries struggled to build the European Union, India succeeded in creating an economic and political union in 1947, anchored in the Constitution.

“If you are going to have any conversation about democracy on the planet, you cannot ignore by far the largest and most complex democracy in the world. That is why I say Indian democracy is a global public good; it is not just an Indian asset, it is a global asset.

“So when I talk of the attack on the Indian democratic system, I don't say it, but it is actually an attack not just on the Indian democratic system, it is an attack on the global democratic system,” Rahul observed.

Attacking the BJP further, he claimed that the Congress had clearly demonstrated that it “won” the Haryana election and asserted that “we actually don't feel that the Maharashtra election was fair”.

Rahul also criticised enforcement agencies such as the CBI and the ED, saying that while the Congress helped build the institutional framework, it never treated it as its own but as belonging to the country.

“But, that's not how the BJP sees (it). It views the institutional framework of India as belonging to them. So they use it as a tool for building political power,” he alleged.

He further alleged that the ED and the CBI have been weaponised. “Going by the number of cases that the ED and the CBI have against BJP people and against the opposition, one would find that most of them are political cases,” he said.

The Congress leader also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic model, claiming that the BJP and the RSS have carried forward the economic policies of former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

“PM Modi, the BJP and the RSS have essentially taken the economic models of Manmohan Singh and taken them right forward,” he claimed. “What Mr Modi is trying to do economically cannot go further... it is jammed,” he alleged.

Speaking about the INDIA bloc, Rahul said, “All parties of the alliance do not agree with the basic ideology of the RSS... we are very much united on that question.” He added, “We have tactical contests, and we will continue to have them. But you will see that when it comes to the opposition requiring unity, that happens every day in Parliament. We are very united, and we will contest the BJP on laws that we disagree with.”

Rahul was on a tour of Germany last week.