Several languages not India's weakness: Rahul tells Shah

Shah's 'one nation one language' theory has drawn widespread criticism

[File] Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi | Arvind Jain [File] Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi | Arvind Jain

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday joined the raging debate over the 'one nation one language' idea mooted by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, saying having many languages was not India's "weakness".

"Oriya, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, English, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, Konkani, Malayalam, Telugu, Assamese, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Nepali, Sanskrit, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Santhali, Manipuri... India's many languages are not her weakness," Rahul tweeted.

On Saturday, Shah had pitched for a common language for the country and said it is Hindi which is spoken the most and that it can unite the whole country.

The home minister had also said efforts will be made to expand Hindi to different parts of the country and asked everyone to use their native languages as much as possible.

The home minister's comment sparked off intense protests, especially in southern states, with opposition parties and activists accusing the BJP government of trying to impose Hindi over their regional languages.