Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said he did not appreciate the language External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid used to criticise the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for the riots in Gujarat in 2002.
“I do not appreciate this kind of comment...the kind of language,” Mr. Gandhi told journalists when asked what he thought of Mr. Khurshid's remark. He was emerging from the AICC headquarters after a meeting of the party's campaign committee.
Mr. Khurshid's description of Mr. Modi being “impotent” — for his failure to check the riots in Gujarat in 2002 — has sparked off a controversy. Even after the BJP took exception to the comment, the Minister stuck to his stand, saying on Wednesday that there was no other word that was appropriate to describe Mr Modi, and that it had been used in a metaphorical, political sense.
On Tuesday, he said in Farukhabad, “We don't accuse you [Modi] of killing people... Hamara aarop hai ki tum 'napunsak' [impotent] ho. [Our accusation is that you are impotent]. You couldn't stop the killers.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Gandhi, saying he was unhappy with senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's “chaiwala” comment about Mr. Modi, urged his party’s spokespersons to refrain from making personal attacks.
Mr. Gandhi said Congressmen should focus on exposing the lies uttered by the BJP rather than on making personal attacks.
