BJP worshipped Lord Ram but stopped at 241 due to arrogance, says RSS leader days after Mohan Bhagwat's veiled attack on Modi's party

Kumar said, "Those who worshipped Ram gradually turned arrogant. The party became the single largest party but was stopped at 241 (240) by Lord Ram due to their arrogance."

"Those who opposed Lord Ram together could win only 234 seats," he added in an attack on the Opposition.

His comments came days after Bhagwat, who heads the BJP's ideological parent RSS, slammed the ruling party over the volatile situation in Manipur where the ethnic clashes led to the eruption of violence.

Speaking about Manipur for the first time since violence broke out in the northeastern state in May last year, Bhagwat said, "Manipur has been waiting for peace for a year. Violence has to be stopped and it has to be given priority".

"We have made strides in many fields like economy, defence strategy, sports, culture, technology etc... That does not mean that we have overcome all the challenges," he added.

Bhagwat also had a piece of advice for the newly formed government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicating that its approach to both election and governance should be tweaked.

"Election is a process of building consensus. Parliament has two sides so that both aspects of any question can be considered," Bhagwat said, underscoring the importance of having an Opposition.

In quite a different scenario than what the BJP had hoped for, the saffron party could win only 240, 63 down from its 2019 election tally and 130 less than its target of 370 as a single party.

Congress, on the other hand, improved its performance greatly, hiking its seats from 52 to 99 and now the tally has touched 101 with two Independents joining them.