'Doesn't deserve to be Congress chief': BJP on Mallikarjun Kharge's remark on Gujaratis

New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday demanded a public apology from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for remarks he made at a campaign rally in Kerala, where he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi could “fool people who are illiterate in Gujarat or other places” but not the electorate of the poll-bound state.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, senior party leader and MP Ravi Shankar Prasad called the remarks the “height of shamelessness and depravity,” and said Kharge did not deserve to head a national party.

“Elections come and go, but has the Congress president completely abandoned all decorum? His utterances are not only demeaning but shameless. What is fitting for a president of a national party to call the people of a state illiterate? Mr Kharge, were Gandhi ji, Sardar Patel, Morarji Desai and Vikram Sarabhai illiterate,” Prasad asked.

Prasad also urged Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to distance himself from the statement. “If Rahul Gandhi demonstrates good judgment, he should separate himself from the remark and ask the party chief to apologise.”

He further questioned whether Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi endorsed Kharge’s position. “You owe an apology to the country. BJP demands an apology. He does not deserve to be the President of Congress,” he added.

Prasad also took strong exception to a separate remark by Kharge at the same Assam rally, where the Congress president described the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as “poisonous snakes” that must be crushed.

He accused Kharge of stoking communal tensions by making the remark before a gathering that included a large section of the Muslim community.

The BJP’s reaction came a day after the party’s national president Nitin Nabin and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi had already condemned the remark. Nabin accused Kharge of “disrespecting the son of Gujarat” and said the party would be punished by voters.

Trivedi expanded the line of attack to encompass North India, asking what Kharge’s remarks implied about figures such as Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, whose roots lay in Gujarat and the Hindi heartland.

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel called the remarks “highly objectionable and unfortunate,” saying they insulted the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.

Several BJP units including the Delhi and Karnataka units have filed FIRs against Kharge. The BJP is also carrying out a rally on “Gujarati Asmita” in Delhi on Wednesday to protest against the remarks.

Kharge made the original remark at a rally in Idukki district of Kerala, where he was campaigning ahead of the April 9 assembly elections.

Seeking to contrast the state’s electorate with voters in Gujarat, he said the people of Kerala were “very clever” and educated and could not be misled the way others elsewhere could be.

The remarks triggered an immediate response from Gujarat, where local body elections are also scheduled in the coming days. The row has widened the BJP’s current political offensive against Congress ahead of multiple simultaneous state polls.