Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge triggered a major controversy, after he called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a poisonous snake. “Modi is like a poisonous snake. If you think it’s poison or not and you lick it, you’re dead. You might think: is this poison? Modi is a good man. He’s given it and we’ll see it. Then you’re fully sleeping if you lick it,” Kharge said. Reacting to the remarks, BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya said the “desperation” showed that the Congress is losing Karnataka and that the party knows it.“Now Congress President Kharge calls Prime Minister Modi ‘poisonous snake.' What started with Sonia Gandhi’s ‘maut ka saudagar’, and we know how it ended, the Congress continues to plummet to new depths. The desperation shows Congress is losing ground in Karnataka and knows it,” Malviya tweeted.
Slamming Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for his controversial remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday said Kharge made the statement because no one accepted him as the chief of his party.“Congress made Mallikarjun Kharge the party president but nobody considers him that, so he thought of giving a statement which is worse than that given by Sonia Gandhi. Congress should apologise to the nation,” Thakur said. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje demanded Kharge’s apology. “Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior leader and president of Congress. What does he want to tell the world? Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of our country and the whole world respects him and using such language for PM shows the level to which Congress has stooped. We want him (Kharge) to apologise to the country,” Karandlaje said.However as controversy sparked, Kharge clarified his earlier remark on PM Modi. He said his remarks were meant for the BJP and not for the Prime Minister.“It was not meant for PM Modi, what I meant was BJP’s ideology is ‘like a snake’. I never said this personally for PM Modi, what I said was their ideology is like a snake and if you try to touch it, your death is certain,” said Kharge.BJP and Congress are at loggerheads at poll-bound Karnataka. The polls for the 224-seat assembly are slated to take place on May 10 and the counting will take place on May 13.