“Nowadays I study the Upanishads and the Gita since I am fighting the RSS and BJP,” he said addressing party functionaries in Chennai.

“I ask them (RSS men), my friend, you are doing this, you are oppressing people, but it is written in the Upanishad that all people are the same and how come you are contradicting what your own religion says,” party sources quoted him as having told them.

He alleged that BJP does not fundamentally “understand India,” and “understand only Nagpur” — the headquarter of the RSS.

Taking potshots at Narendra Modi, he said BJP men were under the impression that the “entire universal knowledge” came out of the Prime Minister.