BJP MP Tejasvi Surya BJP MP Tejasvi Surya BJP MP Tejasvi Surya Hours after Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge called PM Modi a 'poisonous snake', BJP MP Tejasvi Surya said this would be a turning point in the Karnataka assembly election. He said people in the southern state do not accept crass personal comments against anyone, let alone Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Just wait and watch how the last nail on the Congress coffin will be hammered on May 10th," he said in a tweet.
Earlier in the day, Kharge, during a public address, said: "PM Modi is like a 'poisonous snake', you might think it’s poison or not. If you lick it, you are dead."
Union Minister Anurag Thakur slammed the Congress chief for his remarks on PM Modi and asked the party to apologise to the nation. "Congress made Mallikarjun Kharge the party president but nobody considers him that, so he thought of giving a statement which is worse than that given by Sonia Gandhi," Thakur said.
BJP leader and Union minister Shobha Karandlaje, too, demanded an apology from Kharge. She said using such language for the prime minister showed the level to which the Congress had stooped.
"Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior leader and president of Congress. What does he want to tell the world? PM Narendra Modi is the PM of our country and the whole world respects him...using such language for PM shows the level to which Congress has stooped. We want him (Kharge) to apologise to the country," she said while speaking to the news agency ANI.
Kharge later clarified his remarks and said this was not meant for PM Modi. "It wasn't meant for PM Modi, what I meant was BJP's ideology is 'like a snake'. I never said this personally for PM Modi, what I said was their ideology is like a snake and if you try to touch it, your death is certain," he said.
Both Congress and BJP are involved in an aggressive campaign for assembly elections to be held on May 10.