Suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday said he would accept whatever punishment the party gave him for his 'neech aadmi' remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi if the party suffered any damage in the Gujarat elections because of his comments.
The party had given him a lot and there was no future for India without it, he said on the sidelines of an India-Pakistan seminar in New Delhi.
Mr. Aiyar courted controversy by referring Modi as a “neech kism ka aadmi”.
Later, he said, “I meant low level when I said ‘neech’, I think in English when I speak in Hindi as Hindi is not my mother tongue. So it has some other meaning. Then I apologise. I never meant to attack the Prime Minister’s caste. Neech word can have different interpretations. My intention was never to talk of Prime Minister’s caste. I apologise if it also has a caste meaning.”
Gujarat goes to the polls tomorrow in the first phase. The second phase is on December 14
