Bhubaneswar: Referring to BJP leader Sambit Patra’s controversial remark on Lord Jagannath, senior Congress leader Pawan Khera Wednesday alleged that the prime minister is thinking himself to be above God and appealed to the people to break Narendra Modi’s “arrogance” in this election.
Patra had told reporters in Puri Monday that the state’s most revered deity “Lord Jagannath is a devotee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
After this remark created a nationwide controversy, Patra sought an apology from the Lord and his devotees.
Addressing a press conference here, Khera claimed that “arrogance” is so high in the BJP that one leader is thinking that the PM is above God and the prime minister is silent on the issue though 48 hours have passed.
Modi neither sought apology nor removed Patra from the party, he said.
If Patra had been in Congress, he would have been removed from the party because Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge would not tolerate such behaviour, Khera said.
The Congress leader also said, “Modi might be very happy with this remark of Patra because he, during TV interviews, had said that he was not born biologically and directly came from heaven.”
“If you tell a lie, people can tolerate but if you say that God is your ‘bhakt’, no one will tolerate it,” Khera said.
Time has come to break the arrogance of such people, and it will begin from Odisha, he asserted.
PTI