PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday condemned the alleged abuses hurled at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during Rahul Gandhi's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in the state.
"The use of indecent language against PM Narendra Modi Ji and his late mother from the Congress and RJD platforms during the Voter Adhikar Yatra in Darbhanga is extremely unbecoming, and I condemn it," wrote the CM in a post on X on Friday.
The BJP on Thursday asserted the Congress-led INDIA bloc will be "punished" by the people in the upcoming assembly polls, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah termed the incident as a "stain" on the country's democracy.
Shah, BJP president J P Nadda and party spokesperson Sambit Patra flayed Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, a day after a purported video showed an unidentified person using a Hindi expletive against Modi from a dais raised during the yatra in Darbhanga town, from where Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had left for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles on Wednesday.
PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
A delegation of Bihar BJP also lodged a complaint at the Kotwali police station in Patna on Thursday in connection with the incident.
Meanwhile, protest demonstrations were also staged in Darbhanga as well in Patna on Thursday, even as the state women's commission shot off a letter to the administration, seeking "suo motu" action against the culprits.
Effigies of Gandhi and Yadav were burnt by BJP workers in Darbhanga, who joined a procession organised by two-term local MP Gopaljee Thakur.
A Congress leader in Darbhanga, who admitted that the viral video was of a podium that he had erected on the outskirts of the north Bihar town, offered an apology, but maintained that the expletives had been hurled in his absence.
"The video appears to have been shot after I left the spot, following Rahul Gandhi, who passed through. I have not yet watched the clip.Still, I offer my apologies if anything of the sort has happened," said Mohd Naushad, who is a worker of the Youth Congress and is said to be eyeing the party ticket from the Jale assembly seat.
Thakur also submitted a memorandum to District Magistrate Kaushal Kumar, seeking the arrest of Naushad and his associates.