Two days after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flagging BJP leaders’ objectionable remarks against Rahul Gandhi, BJP chief JP Nadda has shot off a letter to Mr Kharge, listing derogatory terms used by Congress leaders against the Prime Minister in the past.

Taking a swipe at Mr Gandhi, Mr Nadda wrote that the Congress has again tried to polish and relaunch a “failed product” that the people have rejected several times.

“Wasn’t it Rahul Gandhi’s mother Sonia Gandhi who used the derogatory expression ‘maut ka saudagar’ (merchant of death) for Modiji? You and your party glorified such shameless statements. Had the Congress forgotten political decorum then?” asked Mr Nadda, also the Union Health Minister.

Mr Nadda wrote that the country’s oldest party has become a “copy & paste” party due to Mr Gandhi’s pressure and has imbibed his ills.

Congress leaders, he wrote, called the Prime Minister “snake”, “scorpion”, “demon”, “pickpocket”, and “coward”. “Even his parents were insulted,” Mr Nadda added.

The BJP president accused Mr Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, of resorting to politics of reservation and caste and inciting people against each other. “Then he goes abroad and talks about ending reservation and snatching away rights of people from Dalit, backward classes and tribal communities,” he wrote.

Addressing a gathering at a US university, Mr Gandhi said the Congress would think of scrapping reservations only when “India is a fair place”, which, he said, is not the case right now. The BJP latched on to the remark and said the Congress leader’s prejudice against reservation is out in the open.

Mr Nadda said it is the Congress that has insulted Indian democracy the most. “The Congress imposed Emergency, backed triple talaq, defamed Constitutional institutions and weakened them.”

What Mallikarjun Kharge Wrote To PM

Earlier, in his letter to the Prime Minister, the Congress president had flagged a “series of objectionable, violent and indecent” remarks against Rahul Gandhi.

Listing the verbal attacks on Mr Gandhi, Mr Kharge pointed to Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu’s “Number 1 terrorist” remark, Shiv Sena leader announcing Rs 11 lakh for “anyone who cuts” Mr Gandhi’s tongue and Delhi BJP leader Tarwinder Singh Marwah’s threat that Mr Gandhi will meet the same fate as his grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

“Indian culture is known across the world for non-violence and love… Gandhiji made these standards a key part of our politics during the British era. After Independence, there has been a long tradition of respectable disagreement between the ruling party and the Opposition,” the Congress chief wrote.

He added that crores of Congress workers are worried over the BJP leaders’ verbal attacks on Rahul Gandhi. “It is because of such forces spreading hate that Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had to sacrifice their lives. This political conduct of the ruling party is the most indecent example in the history of democracy.”

Mr Kharge requested the Prime Minister to enforce decorum and decency among BJP leaders. “There should be strict legal action for such remarks so that Indian democracy can be saved from decline.”