Rahul Gandhi addressing a Congress conclave in Delhi
Rahul Gandhi's comment on "angry people running India and trying to ban English" seeded a round of political squabbling over language on Thursday.
"Today, angry people who are running the country are saying that we should ditch English and promote Hindi," Mr Gandhi said at a party meeting to mark the 125th birth anniversary of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his great-grandfather.
The Congress vice president said it was Nehru who, after India's independence from British rule, insisted that English should remain in the country. "He said we have to be connected to the world, not cut off. The British have gone but we will benefit from their language. We will have both Hindi and English," he said.
Without English, he added, there would be no IIT, no I-T in India.
The BJP accused the Congress leader of "insulting Hindi". The party's spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said, "It seems the Congress will hate whatever Mr Modi likes...like the Hindi language. Rahul Gandhi has opposed Hindi. We respect all languages. We are not opposed to the use of English. Rahul Gandhi has no right to insult Hindi."
Since he took charge in May, PM Modi has made speeches mostly in Hindi, be it at the Independence Day celebrations in Delhi's Red Fort or the UN General Assembly in New York.
Soon after the BJP came to power, parties in Tamil Nadu strongly protested against a central circular that ordered officers to use Hindi in all official communication and posts on social media.
Amid protests, the government clarified that the directive was confined to northern states.