Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has offered an apology for his "poisonous snake" comment on PM Narendra Modi. " If my statement has hurt anyone, if it was misconstrued and distressed anyone, I will express special regret for it," Mallikarjun Kharge said. "We have ideological differences. RSS-BJP's ideology is poisonous. But they compared it to Prime Minister and claimed that I commented about him. It was never my intention to speak about any person or hurt anyone," he said.
Earlier, Kharge had said: "PM Modi is like a 'poisonous snake'. You may be wondering whether think it’s poison or not. But if you lick it, you’re dead."
Kharge's clarification came after the BJP slammed his comment and demanded an apology. Union Minister Anurag Thakur said: "Congress should apologise to the nation." He further stated the Congress chief's statement was worse than that given by Sonia Gandhi, referring to the UPA chairperson's infamous "maut ka saudagar" comment on PM Modi.
Reacting to Kharge's comments, Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai said: "There is a poison in the mind of Kharge. It's a prejudiced mind towards PM Modi and BJP. This kind of thinking comes because of desperation as they are unable to fight him politically and they are seeing that their ship is sinking... People will teach them a lesson."
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Last year, while campaigning in the Gujarat election, Kharge had called Modi a "100-head" Ravan. Addressing a rally in Ahmedabad city, Kharge said the Prime Minister asks people to vote "looking at his face" in all elections.
"Modi ji is prime minister. Forgetting his work, he keeps campaigning in corporation elections, MLA elections, MP elections, everywhere…All the time he's talking about himself -- 'You don’t have to see anyone else, just look at Modi and vote'. How many times do we see your face? How many forms do you have? Do you have 100 heads like Ravan?" Kharge had said.