Cong' Dinesh Gundu Rao targets PM for not taking strict action against Pragya Thakur for Godse remark

Karnataka Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao on Thursday slammed Bharatiya Janata Party's MP Pragya Thakur's remark in Parliament on Nathuram Godse and also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not taking stringent action against her.

"The Prime Minister last time has also said that he will not forgive her. But so far, he has not done anything. In Lok Sabha, Pragya Thakur had called Godse a deshbhakt. What is he going to do now? They are hypocrites. ...She should not have been given a ticket and made the MP. She should first understand the ideology of the BJP," he said while speaking to ANI in Hubli.

"...BJP used Mahatma Gandhi's name for their personal advantage and for his belief and saying. BJP believes what Godse believed in. It is sad that the killer of the father of the nation- Mahatma Gandhi, who is respected worldwide, is the iconic figure for the BJP," he added.

Thakur, a first-time MP from Bhopal had triggered uproar when during a discussion in the lower house on the Special Protection Group (Amendment ) Bill she interjected DMK member A Raja with a remark purportedly in praise of Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse.

However, later on, she claimed that she was referring to Udham Singh. Speaker Om Birla expunged Thakur's remark from the record but opposition members protested outside the House.

Earlier this year, she described Godse as a 'patriot' and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made it clear that such statements would not be tolerated by the party.