After facing backlash over his 'India will become Hindu Pakistan' comment, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party and said his comment was "bizarrely misconstrued". On Wednesday, Tharoor had stirred a row by saying that if the BJP gets elected again in 2019, India will become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’.

On his Facebook, Tharoor wrote: "I have said this before and I will say it again. Pakistan was created as a state with a dominant religion, that discriminates against its minorities and denies them equal rights. India never accepted the logic that had partitioned the country."

"But the BJP/RSS idea of a Hindu Rashtra is the mirror image of Pakistan -- a state with a dominant majority religion that seeks to put its minorities in a subordinate place. That would be a Hindu Pakistan, and it is not what our freedom movement fought for, nor the idea of India enshrined in our Constitution," read Tharoor's post.

However, Tharoor's remark has led to a political fight with the BJP calling for an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Meanwhile, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said the Constitution is sacred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.

The minister told news agency ANI: "This is pure hallucination by Shashi Tharoor. I think this is a withdrawal symptom of the fact that neither they were in power nor do they see power coming to them again. It's Congress that has infringed our Constitution and freedom of our citizens."

BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao said the Congress and other opposition parties "practice bogus secularism". Claiming the Opposition wants "rail against anything to do with Hindu religion", Rao said the Congress just wants to attract minority vote bank.

However, Tharoor has been backed by Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav. Meanwhile, senior member of AIMPLB, Zafaryab Jilani, said the BJP was trying to take away the rights of Muslims, "but there are a lot of secular people in India who won't let it happen".

NCP leader Majeed Memon, meanwhile, said: "What (Tharoor) he means to say is that India will face problems like Pakistan if BJP will come to power in 2019."

On Tuesday, Tharoor, while addressing an event in Thiruvananthapuram, had said that if the BJP wins 2019 General Elections, rights of minorities would be trampled and India will become a "Hindu Pakistan".

Tharoor went on to say that the BJP will "tear apart the Constitution and write a new one". As per ANI, Tharoor added that the new Constitution will be the one which will "enshrine principles of Hindu Rashtra, that will remove equality for minorities, that'll create a Hindu Pakistan and that isn't what Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and great heroes of freedom struggle fought for."

Hitting out at Tharoor for his comment, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi. "Congress was responsible for the creation of Pakistan. Because of its ambitions yet again, it has gone ahead to demean India and defame Hindus of India," Patra had said.