New Delhi, Sep 3 (PTI) Former Union minister and veteran Congress leader Karan Singh on Wednesday expressed dismay at the alleged abuses directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar and demanded strong legal action against the person using such expletives.
“For some years I have expressed anguish over the fall in standards of public discourse and increase of bitterness. I had stated so in my farewell speech in the Rajya Sabha too.
“I felt dismayed after reading that a person has used bad words for Modi ji’s mother. Doing so is against our traditions. There should be stern legal action against such a person, so that no one uses such kind of language in future,” Singh said in a statement in Hindi.
Singh has been a former Sadr-e-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir as well as governor of the erstwhile state.
Last week, a purported video of a person screaming an expletive into a microphone at a small podium erected on the outskirts of Darbhanga by a local Congress leader went viral, even as the organiser claimed that no party functionary of consequence was present at the time of the incident.
The accused, a 25-year-old resident of Darbhanga, has been arrested, but tempers continue to be frayed with the BJP hitting the streets on the issue and its workers exchanging fisticuffs with Congress leaders at the opposition party’s state headquarters.
The Congress-led INDIA bloc maintained that the accused was not a member of any of the constituent parties.
In his first reaction to the alleged abuses, Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday said he was “deeply pained” by the incident, but asserted that while he might forgive the RJD and the Congress, “the people of Bihar will never pardon them”.
Taking a dig at the opposition parties over the recent incident in Darbhanga, he said using expletives against his mother was no big deal for those who insult ‘Mother India’.
“My late mother had nothing to do with politics, so what was her fault; why was she abused?” Modi said, with his voice choking with emotion.
He was addressing a gathering while virtually launching the ‘Bihar Rajya Jeevika Nidhi Sahkari Sangh’, a cooperative initiative that seeks to provide easy access to funds at affordable rates to women self-help groups. PTI SKC SKC KVK KVK
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