Modi doesn't like 'dehati aurat': Khurshid

Slamming Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid today said the BJP leader's attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the purported "dehati aurat" remark shows that he does not like village women and likened him to a "parrot" who makes utterances without verifying facts.

Khurshid said there is nothing wrong in being a "dehati aurat" (village woman) and Modi is out of touch with ground realities.

"Modi does not like 'dehati aurat'. Of course he does not like dehati aurat. Why should we think of a dehati aurat being a pejorative term," he told PTI in an interview here.

He was reacting to Modi's remarks that Singh had been insulted by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by purportedly comparing him with "dehati aurat" in the context of his voicing concern over cross border terrorism during his meeting with US President Barack Obama.

A Pakistani journalist, who first attributed the "dehati aurat" comment to Sharif, later denied that the Pakistani Prime Minister had used such a word.

"He (Modi) attacked Prime Minister on what Nawaz Sharif is supposed to have said or not have said. He didn't bother to check, didn't watch television, except when he is speaking, so it's very difficult for him to know what others are saying and he takes what he has been told," the minister said.