Tewari on Modi: 'Even President's office is not spared to score political brownie points'

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari on Wednesday criticized Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for mentioning the name of President Pranab Mukherjee during his political rally in Kolkata.

Tewari also said that august constitutional offices should not be dragged into controversies, and added that the sanctity of constitutional processes should be respected.

"It is extremely unfortunate that the Chief Minister of Gujarat has sort to trample constitutional propriety by dragging the august office of the President of India into a political discourse. The fact is that the President of India is a symbol of the Indian state. He is supposed to be above parties and politics, and that is the decorum which everybody has maintained from 1950 till 2014," he said.

"But unfortunately in the Chief Minister of Gujarat, you see a tendency that to score political brownie points, he does not even spare the office of the President of India," he added.

Earlier in the day, Modi criticized the Gandhi family for not making Pranab Mukherjee the Prime Minister in 1984.

"When Indira Gandhi died, Pranab Mukherjee was most senior member of the Cabinet, but he was not made the Prime Minister. It would have been better if Pranab Mukherjee was made the PM of the country. In fact, they refused to take Pranab Mukherjee in the Central Government also after Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister. The people of Bengal must not forget this episode or development," he said.

"In 2004, Pranab 'da' was the most senior person, and if Sonia Gandhi did not want to be PM, the seat should have been given to him (Pranab Mukherjee) and not to Manmohan Singh," he added.