Taking offence to Congress leader Imran Masood’s hate speech against their prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday urged the Election Commission (EC) to take action against the ruling party.

The saffron party even dragged previous statements made by president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul targeting the Gujarat chief minister which they said violated poll conduct.

The BJP has described Masood, who has been arrested by the state police for his hate remark, as a “Taliban activist”. BJP MP Varun Gandhi had also made similar provocative speech against minority community and was put behind the bars by the UP police but he was discharged by the courts.

A four-member BJP delegation led by vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Jagat Prakash Nadda and Nirmala Sitaraman submitted a memorandum to the EC demanding “an aggressive posture by suitable and strong action” to make it clear to parties such as Congress that the Commission will be compelled to take punitive action “if such language and postures are not curbed by that political party”.

The BJP in its petition to the election commission said the language and tenor of the speech is a continuity of the electioneering style of his (Masood) party president Sonia Gandhi who had accused the Gujarat chief minister as “merchants of fear and death” during state elections in 2007 and recently “sowing seeds of poison”.