Gujarat elections 2022: Days after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's 'Ravan' barb, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (December 1) said that there's a competition in the grand old party on 'who can abuse him more'. Addressing an election rally in Gujarat's Kalol, PM Modi asserted that the more opposition attacks him and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the more trust people will show in him. PM Modi's statement has come on a day when voting is being held on 89 seats in Gujarat in the first phase of assembly elections.
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"Congress friends must listen carefully, if you want to live for a family, that is your choice, but let me tell you, the more mud you throw, the more the lotus (BJP's symbol) will bloom," PM Modi said triggering a thunderous applause from the crowd.
"I am the son of Gujarat, I am working with the qualities that you have given me, the power that Gujarat has given me, the virtues that Gujarat has given me, are disturbing to these Congressmen," he went on to add.
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Highlighting India's growth story in the past eight years, PM Modi said, "No one thought before 2014 that India would be able to make such a big revolution in the mobile world. When you sent me to Delhi in 2014, there were two mobile phone manufacturing factories, today there are more than 200."
Uproar over Ravan remark
Taking a swipe at PM Modi at a rally in Behrampura area of Ahmedabad city earlier this week, Kharge had said the prime minister asks people to vote "looking at his face" in all elections. "Are you 100-headed like Ravan," he had said.
Kharge's remark had invited a sharp reaction from the BJP which described it as an insult of every Gujarati.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra asked voters in Gujarat to do "100 per cent voting for the son of the soil" Modi to take "revenge" in a democratic manner for the "insult", as he invoked various objectionable remarks made by Congress members over the years against the prime minister.
In response, the Congress called BJP's attack on Kharge as 'anti-Dalit tirade'.
(With inputs from agencies)
