BANGALURU : On the last day of campaign for the Karnataka Assembly elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi strongly hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for raising his ancestral history during a poll rally. He said his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi “is more Indian than many other people in the country.”
“My mother is Italian. My mother has lived the larger part of her life in India. She is more Indian than many, many Indian people I see. My mother has sacrificed for this country, my mother has suffered for this country. And it shows the quality of the Prime Minister when he makes such comments,” Mr. Gandhi said at a press conference in Bengaluru.
“Mr Modi has got anger inside of him. He is angry with everybody, not only me. I am a lightning rod for anger, I attract anger. But that is his problem. It is not my problem,” he said.
“Mr. Modi’s personal attacks on me are his problem, not mine. Mr. Modi’s personal comment on my mother show the kind of person he is” he said.
Mr. Gandhi, who has campaigned in the State for the past two months, said  the BJP’s manifesto, however, was crafted behind closed doors and half of it was copied from the Congress manifesto.“The BJP has not really put down a vision for the State, they have not said what they want to do for the
State,” he said.
The BJP has often targeted Sonia Gandhi for her Italian roots in the run up to the state polls.Ahead of the UPA chairperson’s visit to the poll-bound state, the BJP raked up the issue of her Italian origin by referring to her maiden name Antonio Maino.
“Today, Ms. Antonio Maino is here in K’taka to save her last citadel from falling! Madam Maino, K’taka needs no lessons from the person who was solely responsible for wasting India’s 10 precious years,” the BJP tweeted.
(With Agency Inputs ).