Shah calls Modi 'mard' with 56-inch chest

BJP president Amit Shah today scoffed at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his ‘foreign jaunts’ every time the mercury soars.

“We have no objection to his vacations. Rahul ‘baba’ is young and alone. He should go on vacations. But nobody knows where he goes. Even his mother keeps looking where her son has gone,” Shah said addressing a public gathering at Sonipat in Haryana on Sunday.

He attempted to draw an analogy between Rahul’s foreign trips and what were Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "workaholic" credentials. “Modi has not taken an off day in 20-years,” Shah claimed.

Making an avid appeal to voters in Sonipat, Shah said they need not vote for the BJP candidate from Sonipat, instead only vote for what Modi has done for the security of the nation.

“Chappan inch ki chaati wala mard hai Modi (Modi is a man with a 56-inch chest),” Shah said setting the tone for his narrative around nationalism. After 40 soldiers were killed in the Pulwama attack, Pakistan deployed tanks and guns on the border, he said.

“On the 13th day of their martyrdom, Modi ordered air strikes in Balakot. Only two were mourning: Pakistan and Rahul Baba and company," he said, adding that ‘one goli (bullet) from Pakistan and there will be a gola (bomb) from India’.

He said ‘Rahul Baba and company’ remember the poor only during the elections. “Their four generations, from Nehru to Indira, Rajiv, Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul, have been in power and haven’t been able to remove poverty,” he said.

The BJP chief reiterated his party’s resolve to scrap Article 370. Even if we are not in power, Shah said, we will give our lives to ensure Kashmir is inseparable from India.

Shah also lashed out at past governments in Haryana, saying for years, it was either Hooda or Chautala at the helm.

“When it was Hooda, there was corruption. When it was Chautala there was gundagardi (rowdysim),” Shah said. He deplored Hooda for bringing in the culture of the politics of ‘builders and daamad’ (son-in-law) in a subtle reference to the taint surrounding Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.