Rahul on Khurshid's 'impotent' barb: Don't appreciate such language

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said he does not appreciate the "impotent" remark made by Union Minister Salman Khurshid against Narendra Modi in the context of the 2002 Gujarat riots.

"I do not appreciate this kind of comment...the kind of language," Gandhi said disapproving Khurshid's remark.

The Congress leader was speaking to reporters at the All India Congress Committee headquarters after a meeting of the campaign committee.

The external affairs minister had stoked a controversy by calling Modi "impotent" and insisted that he did nothing wrong as there was no other appropriate word to describe him in the context of the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Slamming Modi for his handling of the riots, Khurshid had said he did not find any other word to express his anguish better and asked the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate to admit the "truth" about the riots.

"I am not his doctor. I cannot physically examine him. So I have no business to be saying what his physical condition is. The word impotent is used in political vocabulary to show that somebody is incapable of doing something," the external affairs minister had said.

"Either you admit you are strong and fully capable and what had happened was done deliberately or say that I made lot of efforts but did not have the capability (to stop the riots). If there is no capability (to deal with) what is it called. Is it not called impotency. If it is called impotency and I said that then what's the problem," he had said.

Rebutting BJP's criticism for his comment, Khurshid had said if they do not understand the vocabulary then he can send a dictionary to them.

BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shanker Prasad had slammed Khurshid, saying some UPA ministers were trying to grab air time through foul language.

The party had asked him to apologise for the "regrettable" and "shameful" comment. BJP leaders said Congress and its leaders have "forgotten manners and etiquettes" and asked if Sonia Gandhi approved of this comment.

On Tuesday, the minister had said, "We don't accuse you (Modi) of killing people... Hamara aarop hai ki tum 'napunsak' (impotent) ho. (Our accusation is that you are impotent). You couldn't stop the killers." PTI AMR SPG

Earlier this month, Rahul had disapproved of Mani Shankar Aiyar's "chaiwala" jibe at Modi, urging party spokespersons to desist from personal attacks.      

Aiyar's comment came up for discussion at a meeting of spokespersons some three weeks back.

A participant lamented that the "chaiwala" comment had handed a needless weapon to the arch rival.

At that time, Rahul had said partymen should not make personal attacks and instead focus on exposing the lies spoken by rivals.

Aiyar had said that Modi would never become prime minister but he was welcome to serve tea to Congressmen, a reference to the Gujarat chief minister's beginning as a tea vendor.