Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and challenged him for a debate on the grand old party’s manifesto.

Referring to Modi’s letter to BJP candidates asking them to raise the alleged “divisive agenda” of the Congress, Kharge said the “desperation and worry” is leading the PM to use a language that doesn’t suit the high office he held.

“From the tone and content of the letter, it seems that there is a lot of desperation and worry in you which is leading you to use language that does not suit the office of the Prime Minister. The letter makes it look like the lines in your speeches are not having the effect you intended and now you want your candidates to amplify your lies. Repeating a lie a thousand times will not make it the truth,” he said.

Reiterating the promises made by the Congress, Kharge highlighted the five major guarantees made by the party in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections 2024.

The senior Congress leader also hit back at the BJP and Modi over appeasement politics, saying “the only appeasement policy that we have seen in the last 10 years is the appeasement of Chinese by you and your ministers.”

Kharge further targeted the Centre for refusing to call China as ‘Ghuspaithiye’, giving a clean chit to the country even as 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives in the Galwan valley.

He also accused the Centre of increasing Chinese imports, by 54.76 per cent in the past 5 years alone.

Responding to Modi’s claim that Congress will divert SC, ST and OBC community resources towards its “vote bank”, Kharge said the “vote bank” of the grand old party encompasses all Indians, including the disadvantaged, women, youth with aspirations, the working class, Dalits, and Adivasis.

“Our vote bank is every Indian – the poor, the marginalised, the women, the aspirational youth, the labour class, the Dalits and the Adivasis. Everyone knows it is the RSS and BJP which have opposed reservations at every stage since 1947. Everyone knows it is the RSS and BJP which wants to change the Constitution to end reservation. Your leaders have openly spoken about it. You need to clarify why you are opposed to reservation to SC, ST and OBCs on the basis of their population as per Article 16 of our Constitution,” he stated in the letter.