New Delhi: The Congress on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of insulting the city of Bengaluru and the people of Karnataka through his remarks during campaigning and sought an apology from him.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the Prime Minister had heaped a “special insult” on Bengaluru and its citizens by calling it a “city of sins” and “city of garbage”.
“He (Modi) has insulted the people of Karnataka, insulted its entrepreneurs, IT technologists by labelling the city, which is known as India’s Silicon Valley, as ‘valley of sin’,” Singhvi said.
Singhvi said that the fear, frustration and follies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were growing in the face of an imminent defeat in the upcoming state assembly elections.
He said that Modi also made “false and superficial statements” regarding former Indian Army chiefs General K.M. Cariappa and General K.S. Thimayya – both Kannadigas – which proved his “lack of grasp of history” and “incapacity of his army of researchers to feed him correct information”.
In an election rally in Karnataka, Modi on Thursday claimed that after the 1948 India-Pakistan war, General Thimayya was insulted by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon.
However, the Congress pointed out that in 1948 General Thimayya was not the chief of the Indian Army nor was Krishna Menon the Defence Minister.
According to the Quint report, PM Modi took Field Marshal Cariappa’s name along with India-China war.
However, Field Marshal Cariappa retired in 1953, 9 years before the 1962 India-China war. He was never badly treated by the Congress, The Quint reported.
With inputs from IANS