Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, December 1
The language of politics remained in focus on Thursday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence on negative references made to him by Congress president and slammed the grand old organisation and its leaders for competing to abuse him.
Addressing a poll rally at Chotta Udepur in Gujarat for the second phase of elections on December 5, the PM said, “The Congress has no faith in Ramayana, the Congress has no faith in Lord Ram, and Ram Sethu. But the Congress used Ravan to abuse me. It is almost as if there is a competition under way among the Congress leaders on who can abuse me more.”
The PM was reacting to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s Monday remarks where the latter attacked Modi saying, “Is he a ten headed Ravan to ask people to vote in his name and face election after election?”
PM Modi broke his silence on the issue on Thursday as Gujarat voted for phase-I elections for 89 seats in South Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra regions.
Of these 89 seats, the BJP holds 48 and Congress 40.
On Wednesday, the BJP had released a video featuring anti-PM references by a range of Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Kharge and Madhusudan Mistry.
The BJP has again decided to play the card of emotions by urging people to “teach Congress a lesson for insulting Modi, son of the soul”.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had on Wednesday said Modi was the symbol of Gujarati pride and glory in the 21st century as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel were in the 20th century and that “Gujarat will give a befitting reply to the Congress for insulting Modi”.