Mah. Min. Lonikar lashes out at Rahul Gandhi for his remark against PM Modi

Maharashtra Minister Babanrao Lonikar tore into Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his statement against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech at the University of California in Berkeley, U.S., and asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists to "hit back" at anybody criticising the latter.

"Was Rahul Gandhi sleepy or drunk? Nobody is giving him their daughter; he is not getting married. And he is criticising Prime Minister Modi," Lonikar said.

Lonikar called upon the BJP activists to launch a protest and barge into the meeting of the party condemning their senior leaders.

"If somebody insults our mother or father or make any unwarranted comments against our party leaders, then that person should be hit back at in a similar way," he said.

Rahul on Tuesday hit at Prime Minister Modi over the demonetisation drive and said that ignoring India's tremendous institutions of knowledge and taking ad hoc decision are reckless and dangerous.

"Decisions like demonetisation taken without asking the Chief Economic Advisor and the Parliament caused a tremendous damage. The kind of economic growth today is worrying and is leading to upsurge of anger in the country," he said.

"The Government's economic policy of demonetisation and hastily implemented the GST has caused a tremendous pressure on the economy," he added.

Referring the small and medium enterprises as the bedrock of India's economic progress, Rahul said that millions of businesses were simply wiped out as a result of the Prime Minister's decision.

"Prime Minister Modi clamped down on the RTI. He shut it down. We got in trouble as we dramatically increased the transparency," he said.

Rahul further alleged the BJP of running a campaign and spreading 'abuses' against him.

"There is a BJP machine - about 1,000 guys sitting on computers and telling you about me. Tremendous machine. All day they spread abuse about me and the operation is run by the 'gentleman' [PM Modi], who is running our country," he alleged.