New Delhi, Feb. 5 -- Ravneet Singh Bittu, minister of state in the Narendra Modi cabinet, and Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha exchanged words outside Parliament, with the latter calling Bittu, a former Congressman and part of his (Gandhi's) inner circle, traitor, and Bittu retorting by calling Gandhi "enemy of the state". "Here is a traitor walking right by. Take a look at his face," said Gandhi, referring to the minister of state for railways Bittu, who left the Congress in 2024 to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. "Hello brother, my traitor friend. Don't worry, you will come back (to Congress)," he added, while offering to shake hands with Bittu. The minister refused his outstretched hand. Bittu started his political career as the president of the Punjab Youth Congress in 2008, which was a part of Rahul Gandhi's effort to strengthen and democratise the Youth National Congress. During his 16-year stint with the party, he was thrice MP and MoS for Railways, and also a close aide of Gandhi. Bittu later told reporters that Congress leaders think of themselves as "kings of the country". He remarked that the Congress party accorded former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the status of a martyr after his assassination in 1991, while the same respect was not given to Sardar Beant Singh, his grandfather. Singh was a member of the Congress and the CM of Punjab who was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1992. In a statement, he also said the Congress party and the Gandhi family were enemies of the country and "murderers" of Sikhs, which is why he would not shake hands with a descendant of their family. His reference was to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination by her Sikh bodyguards. Bittu said the lives lost in Punjab and the desecration of the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star, a military operation led by former PM Indira Gandhi to remove Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from the site. Backing Bittu, three Sikh leaders of the BJP, Union minister Hardeep Puri, Delhi minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Delhi MLA Arvinder Lovely held a press conference to condemn Gandhi's words. "This mindset... (is troubling). I can understand that Rahul Gandhi, the LoP, may be upset that Bittu ji was in his party and then left it. If he wants to express anger, he could say, 'My friend, my long-lost friend, you will come back...' But instead, calling someone a 'traitor' is unacceptable" said Puri....