India's federally ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday criticized the Congress party and its parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi for playing a song rather than the national anthem at a political rally.
At the end of an event as part of his Unite India campaign in Maharashtra state's Wasim on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi and fellow Congressmen stood up and asked for the national anthem to be played. However, another song was played instead. The music was stopped shortly after and finally the national anthem was was heard.
Maharashtra BJP member Nitesh Rane shared a video of the incident, tweeting, "[Papu's comedy circus" (BJP members often call Gandhi 'Papu', which means a "naive person" in Hindi).
As the video went viral, another BJP member Amar Prasad Reddy also shared it, writing "Rahul Gandhi, what is this?"