BJP slams Rahul Gandhi for targeting Uma Bharti

Sitapur/ Ghazipur, Jan 20 (ANI): Flaring up the political heat in poll bound Uttar Pradesh, leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fired back at Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi over his scathing remarks on BJP's star campaigner Uma Bharti.

Campaigning at Sitapur, National Secretary of BJP Kirit Somaiya said Rahul Gandhi has become so scared after the declaration of Uma Bharti's contestation that he has forgotten the tradition of our country.

" I guess we need to remind him of the basic Hindu culture, in which a woman is always respected and never insulted," he added.

Somaiya further compared the situation to Gandhi's late grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi other than saying that the Congress party should gear up to face massive defeat in the state assembly.

"Rahul Gandhi's grandmother Indira Gandhi also went to Chikmagalur in Karnataka to contest elections. Under the leadership of Uma ji BJP is going to get victory in Uttar Pradesh, I don't want to remind of his grandmother nor of his mother. In reality Rahul Gandhi's Congress party would become a foreign party after elections in Uttar Pradesh," said Somaiya.

Taking on the BJP's star campaigner, Rahul Gandhi earlier said Uma Bharti had never done anything to develop the backward region.

"A BJP leader (Uma Bharti) has come from Madhya Pradesh. Where was she when farmers were dying in Bundelkhand? Now that elections are here she has come to you," he told an election rally in Uttar Pradesh.

Bharti, who is contesting for the BJP from the Charkari constituency, earlier said she would make Uttar Pradesh a perfect state.

Uttar Pradesh polls are being viewed as an opportunity for major parties to re-establish their foothold in the country's fifth largest and most populous state.

Polls in Uttar Pradesh are to be conducted in seven phases between February 8 and March 3. The counting of votes would take place on March 6.

Uttar Pradesh will elect a new 403-member state assembly in March, and the poll results are expected to broadly indicate trends for the 2014 general elections. (ANI)