Minister of State Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey triggered a political storm with his derogatory remarks for Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday.
Speaking on the allegations levelled by the 48-year-old Gandhi on the Narendra Modi government over the Dassault Rafale deal, Choubey said that the Congress president is “schizophrenic”.
“Rahul Gandhi is suffering from mental schizophrenia. A schizophrenic calls another person mental but doesn’t know his own state of mind,” Choubey said in Bihar’s Sasaram.
The Member of Parliament from Buxar didn’t stop at that; he went on to call Gandhi a “naali ka keeda”, which is the Hindi equivalent of gutter rat.
“I felt pained when he called our PM a liar. I think that such a person should be admitted in a mental asylum,” Choubey said.
Comparing Gandhi’s stature to PM Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said, “The PM’s stature is like the sky. The current Congress president’s stature is like that of a naali ka keeda.”
Choubey’s remarks comes mere days after Union Minister Uma Bharti called Rahul Gandhi “mentally unstable” for the latter’s remarks on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
“What Rahul speaks and what he does was seen by all in Parliament. But what he had stated in London also stunned fellow Congressmen. Rahul’s statement that the Congress was not involved in 1984 anti-Sikh riots was a blatant lie as all cases related to the riots were filed against Congress leaders. Rahul is mentally ill and I pray to the god to grant him wisdom,” Bharti, the Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation, reportedly said in Madhya Pradesh’s Sehore on 27 August.
Choubey is the father of Arijit Shashwat, who was on 1 April sent to 14-day judicial custody over the 17 March communal clashes in Bhagalpur. Shashwat was later granted bail.
Read More: Court grants bail to Arijit Shashwat