New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday received summons from a Delhi court for his “scorpion” remark against PM Narendra Modi. The order comes on a plea by BJP leader Rajiv Babbar who had filed a complaint against Tharoor alleging that the comments hurt his religious sentiments.

Tharoor has been asked to appear before the court June 7, according to news agency ANI.

Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor has stirred up a controversy with a new analogy on Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- one that he attributed to an "RSS source" of a journalist. Addressing at an event in Bengaluru, Mr Tharoor, whose book on PM Modi was recently released, said the "personality cult" of the Prime Minister did not sit well with many in the RSS establishment.

The ideological mentor of the BJP, he said, also found it "extremely difficult" to "curb" PM Modi. There's an "extraordinarily striking metaphor", he said, in which the RSS expressed their "profound frustration with their inability to curb Mr Modi - and the man says 'Mr Modi is a like a Scorpion sitting on a Shivling. You cannot move it with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either'."

Within hours, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded an apology from the Congress chief. "Shashi Tharoor, who is an accused in a murder case, has attempted to disrespect Lord Shiva. I seek a reply from Rahul Gandhi, who claims to be a bhakt of Lord Shiva, on this horrific denunciation of Hindu gods by a Congress MP. Rahul Gandhi must apologise to all Hindus," he tweeted.