PM Narendra Modi a shahanshaah, cut off from public, says Priyanka Gandhi

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a shahanshaah' (king of king) who lives in a palace but is cut off from the public, responding to the PM's shehzada' jibe for her brother Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress general secretary was addressing a public rally at Lakhani in Gujarat's Banaskantha Lok Sabha constituency to canvass for her party candidate Geniben Thakor.

He calls my brother shehzada'. I would like to tell him that this shehzada walked for 4,000 kilometres from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to listen to your (people's) problems, met my brothers and sisters, farmers and labourers and asked how we can resolve their problems, she said.

Addressing a rally in Gujarat on Thursday, PM Modi had targeted Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, saying Pakistan was eager to make the shehzada' of the grand old party India's next PM as the country's enemies want a weak government at the helm.

On the other hand is your shahanshah', Narendra Modiji. He lives in a palace. Have you ever seen him on TV? Clean clothes with not a single speck of dust, not a single stray hair strand. How will he ever understand your hard work, your farming? How will he understand your problems, that you are overburdened with inflation? she said.

The Congress leader also said that the BJP wants to change the Constitution, and reduce and weaken the rights given to the people through the statute book.

If you understand politics today, the biggest thing that Modi has done in the last 10 years is to weaken the rights of the public, she said.

In Banaskantha, which will go to polls in the third phase on May 7, the BJP has nominated Rekha Chaudhary, an engineering college professor and first-timer, against Congress' Thakor.