Chennai: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge courted controversy on Tuesday by calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a terrorist.
Even as the BJP launched a protest and demanded an apology, Kharge clarified that he had meant to say Modi ‘terrorises’ the Opposition.
Kharge was speaking on the AIADMK joining hands with the BJP-led NDA for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly elections when he made the gaffe, News18 reported.
“How can they (AIADMK) join with Modi? He is a terrorist. And he w
ho won’t believe in equality. His party won’t believe in equality and justice. And these people are joining with them, it means that they are weakening democracy…” Kharge said.
The Congress president was campaigning in Chennai for the DMK-led alliance of which the Congress is a part.
Kharge’s scathing attack on the AIADMK-BJP alliance comes on the last day of campaigning for the Tamil Nadu election, voting for which will take place on April 23. He did not mince words as he said by joining hands with a party like the BJP, the AIADMK was “weakening democracy and the philosophy of Annadurai, Kamaraj, Periyar…and Babasaheb Ambedkar”.
He also claimed that the AIADMK has become a slave of the BJP, doing its bidding.
The Congress-DMK alliance will, however, continue to deliver “welfare, inclusive growth, quality education, and accessible healthcare” in Tamil Nadu, Kharge said.