Following Rahul Gandhi’s tweet on the word lynching, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday hit back at the Congress leader and called his father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi “father of mob lynching”.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that lyncing was practically unheard of before 2014, when Narendra Modi’s government stormed to power.

At the end of the tweet, the Congress leader put a hashtag reading ‘Thank You Modiji’.

Hitting out at him, BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya replied to his tweet and shared the number of incidents before 2014 when violence had taken place in various parts of the country.

“Ahemdabad (1969), Jalgaon (1970), Moradabad (1980), Nellie (1983), Bhiwandi (1984), Delhi (1984), Ahemdabad (1985), Bhagalpur (1989), Hyderabad (1990), Kanpur (1992), Mumbai (1993)… This is just a small list in which more than 100 people died under Nehru-Gandhi parivar’s watch,” tweeted Malviya.

Launching a blistering attack on Rahul Gandhi, the BJP leader then shared a video of Rajiv Gandhi reflecting on the violence that broke out following the death of ex-PM Indira Gandhi.

In his tweet, Malviya said, “Meet Rajiv Gandhi, father of mob lynching, justifying blood curdling genocide of Sikhs. Congress took to streets, raised slogans like ‘khoon ka badla khoon se lenge’, raped women, wrapped burning tyres around necks of Sikh men while dogs gorged on charred bodies dumped in drains.”