Advani in Delhi. (PTI)

New Delhi, Dec. 7: L.K. Advani today breathed fire at Sonia Gandhi for branding Narendra Modi a “merchant of death” and questioned why the poll panel had not slapped a notice on her for using “ highly objectionable” language.

Speaking up for the Gujarat chief minister who is under fire for having defended the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, he claimed Modi had been “provoked” into doing so by the Congress president.

Modi had not intended to justify the killing as he knew fake encounters were “unconstitutional”, Advani said.

Modi had said at a rally on Tuesday: “What should have been done to a man from whom a large number of AK-47 rifles were recovered, who was on the search list of police from four states…?”

Blaming Sonia for the speech, Advani said at a news conference her remarks “were not good for democracy” and would cost her dear in the polls.

“Sonia’s demonising of a democratically elected chief minister as maut ka saudagar is a provocation of the gravest kind. It is a personalised attack and betrays a perverse mind.”

“The Election Commission should not have double standards. Both parties should be asked to explain.”

The poll panel had yesterday sent Modi a notice for defending Sohrabuddin’s murder.

But the Congress denied that Sonia had called Modi a “merchant of death”. “Mrs Gandhi took no names... She said what the state government has already admitted in the Supreme Court, nothing more, nothing less,” Union minister Kapil Sibal said.

“Mrs Gandhi said, ‘your state functionaries’. ‘Merchants of death’ was meant for the manner in which certain state functionaries were working,” he said. “The state machinery was involved in this (fake encounter).”

“The fact of the matter is crime branch chief D.G. Vanzara was his (Modi’s) chief pracharak and he is now in jail (for Sohrabuddin’s murder).”

Sibal also dismissed the BJP’s claim that Modi had been provoked into making the speech. “He brought out advertisements that were communal in nature in Gujarati papers on November 28 and 30, much before Mrs Gandhi went to Gujarat.”

Asked why he had not reacted so violently at BJP rebel Keshubhai Patel calling Modi “Hitler”, Advani said that was preferable to being called a “merchant of death”. “In India, you call anybody who is authoritarian a Hitler. Hitler is not linked with murder or death,” Advani said.