New Delhi: Criticising Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over his alleged derogatory remarks on democracy in India in the UK, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday slammed him and said that if he tries to harm the nation, BJP won't remain silent.

He added that he does not have the right to insult the nation.

"If the Congress Party feels that insulting our nation is nothing serious then it doesn't deserve to represent a section of the people in the Parliament," he said here.

Stepping up his attack on Congress and Gandhi Rijiju said, “Whatever he speaks, he ends up harming his own party. But we have no interest in their internal matters, and added “if he tries to harm the nation, we won't remain silent and we won't forgive him."

Reiterating his party’s demand for an apology from Gandhi, Rijiju said, “Just because the country has rejected Congress doesn't mean that they have got the right to speak ill about the country.”

"It doesn't give them the right to insult Parliament, insult Democracy, on a foreign land," he said.

Referring to Congress’s poor performance in the recent elections, he said, "If the people of the country have rejected the Congress, then it is not our fault.

"If Rahul Gandhi harms and destroys the Congress Party, we have no interest in this matter. But if he tries to insult the nation, the Temple of Democracy we can never afford this.”

With the BJP insisting on an apology from Gandhi and the Opposition demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the issues raised by the Hindenburg report on the Adani Group, the Budget Session of Parliament has been witnessing pandemonium in both the upper and the lower Houses.

Speaking in the UK recently, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had alleged that the structures of Indian democracy are under “brutal attack” and that BJP and RSS have captured almost all institutions.

He then went on to urge the United and the European nations to intervene and restore democracy in India, which according to him "has come undone".

"Why Europe and the US, the defenders of democracies, were oblivious of it?” Gandhi had asked.

(Using UNI inputs)