Priyanka's attacks on Modi become sharper, hard-hitting

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi since beginning of her campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections but the attacks seem to have grown sharper and more hard-hitting since the BJP leader targeted her father as "Brashtachri Number 1".

Over the past few days, Priyanka Gandhi has likened Modi to Kaurava ruler Duryodhana who was known for his arrogance and to a schoolboy who makes excuses for failures. 

On Thursday, at an election rally at Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh where Modi had made the remarks against her father, Priyanka Gandhi, in a blistering attack, slammed him as "a coward and weak PM".

"Maine inse bada kayar aur kamzor pradhan mantra nahin dekha (I have not seen a more coward and weak Prime Minister than him," she said. 

Noting that political power does not come with big campaigns on television, she said: "It comes when one believes that the people are bigger than any position. A person should have the courage to listen to people's problems, solve their problems and listen to criticism. This Prime Minister neither listens to you nor responds to your questions."

During her road shows in Delhi on Wednesday, she threw a challenge to Modi to contest the last two phases of the general elections on the issues of demonetisation, GST, women's safety and promises made to the youth. 

"His situation is like a schoolboy who never comes with his homework. When the teachers asks him, he says Nehruji took my paper away and hid it or Indira Gandhi made a paper boat out of it and put in the water," she said, in a sarcastic attack on Modi's remarks that Congress governments had done little for the country. 

Seeking to connect with the people in the road show in North East Delhi, Priyanka Gandhi said she was born in Delhi and knew every of its lanes, but Modi has been here for five years and does not know what people want. 

She said voters should give "appropriate answer" for all the "false promises" made by Modi in the last five years.

At a rally in Ambala on Tuesday, she said BJP and Modi's "arrogance is like that of Duryodhana". 

"This country has never forgiven arrogance. Even Duryodhana had such arrogance, history is witness to it, Mahabharata is witness to it. When Lord Krishna tried to make him see sense, he wanted to take him hostage."

Also citing lines of Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, she said he had written that when a man is headed towards destruction, the first thing he loses is his ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

After Modi had attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi through his father at Pratapgarh, Priyanka Gandhi took to Twitter to hit back a day later.

"The Prime Minister who insults martyrs by seeking vote in the name of their sacrifices yesterday crossed his limits by insulting the sacrifice of a noble man who gave his life for the country. The people of Amethi will reply as Rajiv Gandhi sacrificed his life for them. Yes, Modiji, the country never forgives cheating," she said.  IANS