Rahul labels PM Modi as ‘Panauti’ following India’s World Cup defeat

New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for his “panauti Modi” barb against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, slamming his remarks as “shameful and disgraceful” and demanding an apology from him.

“PM means Panauti Modi,” Gandhi said at an election rally in Rajasthan earlier in the day, insinuating the prime minister’s presence in the Ahmedabad stadium during the India-Australia Cricket World Cup final brought bad luck to the home side, which lost the decider. Hitting back, senior BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Gandhi’s remarks about the prime minister of the country was “shameful, condemnable and disgraceful”.

He has shown his true colours but he must remember as to how the Congress has sunk in Gujarat after his mother Sonia Gandhi called Modi, then chief minister of the state, “maut ka saudagar”. “I vehemently condemn Rahul Gandhi’s comment about the prime minister,” Prasad told reporters when asked for his reaction on the Congress leader’s remarks. The BJP leader alleged that Gandhi has made such remarks against Prime Minister Modi out of frustration seeing an imminent defeat of the Congress in the assembly polls.

“Rahul Gandhi must apologise...else we will make this issue very serious,” the BJP leader said, adding that the Congress leader with his remarks against Modi has shown “his true colours as to what is your status and understanding”. Addressing the rally in Baytoo in Balotra ahead of the November 25 Rajasthan assembly polls, Gandhi alleged Modi diverts people’s attention while industrialist Adani picks their pockets.

He said Modi “comes on TV and says ‘Hindu- Muslim’ and sometimes goes to a cricket match. It is a different matter that the match was lost. Panauti.” “PM means Panauti Modi,” he said.