Gujarat chief minister and the BJP’s election campaign committee chief Narendra Modi was on Friday the favourite punching bag of the Congress, which dubbed him as a frog just out of well, national embarrassment, symbol of ignorance and illiteracy and having abrasive hunger for power which has no limits.
A day after his no-holds barred attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior leaders from the Congress competed with each other to take potshots at the “over-ambitious” Mr Modi asking him to first gain acceptability within the BJP.
Union minister Anand Sharma said Mr Modi is a “national embarrassment”.
Taking a dig at the BJP leader, AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said, “After hearing Modi’s speech, it appears to me that when the PM talked about the need to fight ignorance and illiteracy, he apparently had people like Modi in mind.”
In Dehra Dun, another Union minister Salman Khurshid said, “He (Modi) is like a frog just out of the well and at a loss to find the right place for himself in the big wide world.”
Ridiculing Mr Modi for attempting to draw such a comparison, Mr Khurshid said, “We are fighting election against the BJP. First he (Modi) should get hold over the BJP. Right now he is not being able to convince his party BJP itself.”
Accusing Mr Modi of acting contrary to all established norms and traditions, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said he was “over-ambitious” and “it is this very over-ambition of Modi which is behind all this. Now there is no limit for him. He (Modi) has crossed all limits.”
Latching on to Mr L.K. Advani’s apparent disapproval of Mr Modi’s attack on the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech, Mr Digvijay Singh also tweeted, “On Modi’s Independence (Day) speech, I and Advaniji are on the same page. Modi’s abrasive hunger for power has no limits.”
Congress leader Rashid Alvi recited a Urdu couplet, telling Mr Modi, “It is not easy to become Prime Minister for which you are longing all along. You realise this that there is sea of fire and you have to cross it. Only speeches and publicity cannot take Modi to the Prime Minister’s chair.”