Rahul Gandhi on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was engaged in a direct fight with India and warned him to be prepared to face people’s backlash.

Addressing a gathering at a Congress protest meet at Rajghat against the amended citizenship law and the proposed nationwide register of citizens, Rahul said: “The country has now understood that Modi only knows how to spread hatred and divide the country. He is number one in this. But he can’t attack India, can’t divide India. The Constitution reflects the voices of everyone, of every religion. If Modi attacks India, people of India will hit back.”

In his most blistering attack on Modi since the Congress’s defeat in the parliamentary election, Rahul said: “He knows nothing else. His organisation (RSS) has taught him only one thing for years: how to divide India, how to spread hate. He is doing with all his might what our enemies couldn’t do — weaken India. Our enemies wanted to halt India’s progress; Modi did that by destroying the economy.”

Referring to the Prime Minister’s statement that the protesters against CAA-NRC could be recognised by their clothes, Rahul said: “Modiji, the entire country recognises you by your clothes. Nobody else wears a suit worth crores. You wore that suit.”

The reference was to the monogrammed suit Modi wore at a meeting with Barack Obama during the US President’s visit to India, which had prompted Rahul to describe the BJP government as “suit-boot ki sarkar”. That incisive jibe caused such a political flutter that the Prime Minister auctioned the suit.

The suit, with Modi’s name all over it, was sold for Rs 4.31 crore in Surat and entered the Guinness World Records as “the most expensive suit sold at auction”.

Most political parties, including the BJP’s allies, have opposed exclusion of Muslims from the amended citizenship law.

Rahul, with his sharp criticism of the Prime Minister, also countered Modi’s attempt to wriggle out of the crisis by claiming that the anger was misplaced. Modi had said on Sunday that there was no talk of a nationwide NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act could not snatch citizenship.

Rahul said: “Modi ji, when you mount pressure on the judiciary, you suppress the voice of India. When you try to silence students and media, you suppress the voice of India. You have wrongly presumed that you are fighting a political battle against the Congress. The Congress is the voice of India. I want to tell Modi, and his friend (Amit) Shah, that they are fighting India. You are trying to suppress not the judiciary, not the media, not the students… but the voice of India. And you will be given a befitting reply.”