New Delhi: The Congress Friday hit out at the BJP over its leader Basangouda Patil Yatnal calling Sonia Gandhi a “vishkanya”, demanded his expulsion from the party and asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved of such name-calling.
The party also asked Prime Minister Modi to apologise to Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party.
Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka and its leaders have lost their mental balance as well as political propriety, asserting that Yatnal’s remarks are the “worst kind” of abuse against Gandhi at the “instance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai”.
“Facing a complete rout in the assembly elections, the BJP leadership is frustrated to the core and is hurling filth and muck, which is the product of their ugly character and dirty mindset of denigrating and insulting the Congress leadership. They have lost all sense of propriety, political balance and even a remote iota of decency and decorum,” he said in a statement.
“Instructed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and supported by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, BJP leader and Modi Ji’s personal favourite Basangouda Patil Yatnal has stooped to the lowest by calling UPA chairperson and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi ‘vishakanya’ and ‘agent of China and Pakistan’,” Surjewala said.
BJP MLA Yatnal likened Gandhi to a “vishakanya” (venomous) in retaliation to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s “venomous snake” barb hurled at Prime Minister Modi, with the comments drawing sharp response from the opposition party which sought the legislator’s expulsion.
“The entire world appreciates Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The US had not given him visa once upon a time, but today he has emerged as a world leader who receives a red carpet welcome and rubs shoulders with world leaders,” Yatnal said at a public meeting Thursday.
“He (Modi) is compared with a cobra and is called venomous. Is Sonia Gandhi, whom you go dancing about in your party, a vishakanya? Sonia Gandhi who ruined the country and works as an agent of China and Pakistan,” Yatnal, who is seeking re-election in the May 10 Karnataka elections from Vijayapura, charged.
The “vishkanya” remark against Gandhi by Yatnal came a day after Kharge compared Modi with a poisonous snake.
Campaigning in Karnataka for the assembly polls is in full swing and the Congress seeks to wrest power from the BJP in the state. Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP is in power.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted, “Every election, they hurl new abuses to insult Sonia Gandhi ji, who has led her entire life with utmost dignity and grace. BJP continues to stoop to new lows, with their filthy language against our leaders. Modi ji, do you endorse these words?”
“Yadha raja thada Praja (as is the king so are the subjects),” he said.
AICC general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh said, “Desperation and despair has made the BJP stoop to name-calling. Their star campaigner Mr Basangouda Patil Yatnal has called former Congress President Smt Sonia Gandhi ‘vishakanya’ and ‘agent of China and Pakistan’.”
“Does the PM approve? He should immediately expel Mr Yatnal and apologise to Mrs. Gandhi,” Ramesh said on Twitter.
Surjewala said, “The BJP leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have made a profession of abusing the Nehru Gandhi Family. PM Modi himself has, in the past, called Sonia Gandhi as ‘Congress Ki Vidhwa’ and even used filthy language like calling her ‘jersey cow’.”
Such language hurled at Sonia Gandhi reflects the “absolutely debased and undignified character” of the BJP and its leadership, the AICC general secretary in-charge for Karnataka said.
The Congress leader claimed that the sad part is that all of this has the “tacit approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, J P Nadda and Basavaraj Bommai”.
“If Prime Minister has even an iota of decency or dignity, he should immediately expel Basangouda Patil Yatnal from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Otherwise, it will be proved that the debased, ugly and deranged remarks being made by Yatnal against Sonia Gandhi are at the instance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai,” he said.
“We also demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai should tender an unconditional public apology to Sonia Gandhi as also to the Congress leadership,” the Congress leader said.
PTI
