A BJP lawmaker has called Sonia Gandhi a “vishkanya” (poison maiden) in retaliation for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s “poisonous snake” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Basavaraj Patil Yatnal, who is contesting the May 10 Assembly elections, further accused Sonia of working “as an agent of China and Pakistan to destroy this country”.
The Congress accused the BJP of stooping to "new lows” while recalling how Modi had previously called Sonia “Congress ki vidhwa (Widow of the Congress)” and “Jersey cow”.
Yatnal, known for making controversial comments, hurled the "vishkanya" barb at an election rally in Koppal late on Thursday, just hours after Kharge’s attack on Modi.
“Today, Mallikarjun Kharge gave a statement saying he’s a snake. Who? Modi. Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior leader and we respect him. But how can the Congress national president speak like this about a nation’s Prime Minister?” Yatnal said.
“Friends, today the whole world has accepted Prime Minister Modi. Once America did not give him a visa. Today they roll out the red carpet for our Prime Minister, who is a world leader…. Such a person is being compared to a venomous snake.”
Yatnal then asked: “In that case is Sonia Gandhi a vishkanya?"
As the crowd applauded, he added: “Sonia Gandhi worked as an agent of China and Pakistan to destroy this country.”
Kharge had on Thursday told a Congress rally: “Modi is like a poisonous snake. Do not try licking it to confirm whether it's poisonous. If you do it, you will be dead. If you think it’s been given by Modi, a good man, the Prime Minister, so let’s lick and see, you’ll be left sleeping (would be dead) there itself.”
He had later explained that he had actually meant that the ideology Modi adhered to was like a poisonous snake and that he had not intended to target anyone personally.
The Congress ripped into Yatnal on Friday.
“Every election, they hurl new abuses to insult Smt. Sonia Gandhi ji, who has led her entire life with utmost dignity and grace,” Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal tweeted.
“BJP continues to stoop to new lows, with their filthy language against our leaders. Modi ji, do you endorse these words? Yadha raja thada Praja (As the king, so the subject).”
Randeep Singh Surjewala, Congress general secretary in charge of Karnataka, alleged that BJP leaders had “lost their mental and political balance”.
“Facing a complete rout in the Assembly elections, (the) BJP leadership is frustrated to the core and is hurling filth and muck, which is the product of their ugly character and dirty mindset of denigrating and insulting the Congress leadership,” he said in a statement.
“They have lost all sense of propriety, political balance and (lack) even a remote iota of decency and decorum.”
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, BJP leader and Union minister of state for electronics and information technology, told a TV channel that the party didn’t concur with Yatnal’s comments.