'Not that big of a fool': Mani Shankar Aiyar justifies his 'foul-mouthed' jibe at PM Modi after BJP retorts

Back in the news with his latest “foul-mouthed” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and facing the BJP’s ire for the same, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Tuesday said that only one line has been played up while he wrote an entire article.

“Statement has come from my side, there is a whole article, picking out one line from it and saying "now talk on this". I'm not ready to be involved in your games, 'main ullu hoon, lekin itna bada ullu nahi hoon' (I may be a fool but not such a big one),” Aiyar was quoted by ANI as saying.

Aiyar, in his article published in Rising Kashmir and The Print, justified his “neech” remark against PM Modi and also called him the most "foul-mouthed" prime minister the country has seen.

The article drew sharp retorts from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which called him "abuser-in-chief" and described his party as arrogant.

In the article, Aiyar also slammed Modi on a series of issues and asked, "Remember how I described him on 7 December 2017? Was I not prophetic?"

In 2017, the former Union minister called Modi "neech aadmi" following which he was suspended from the Congress party.

Justifying that comment, Aiyar said in his article, "Modi will, in any case, be ousted by the people of India on 23 May. That would be a fitting end to the most foul-mouthed prime minister this country has seen or is likely to see. Remember how I described him on 7 December 2017? Was I not prophetic?"

The Congress distanced itself from Aiyar's remarks saying it is his personal opinion, even as the party accused the prime minister of lowering the dignity of his office.

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said his party is not on the back foot regarding Aiyar's remarks, instead it should be Modi who should be ashamed for his remarks on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

"Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks are his own as stated by him in his article. The Congress is neither on the back foot nor ashamed of his remarks. It's the PM who should be ashamed for lowering the dignity of the office he occupies by making disparaging remarks against former PM Rajiv Gandhi and former Congress President Sonia Gandhi.  

"The PM should apologise to the country for the abusive language that he has used," Shergill said, referring to Modi recently saying Rajiv Gandhi's life ended as 'Bhrashtachari No 1' (corrupt number 1).

BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao put out a tweet saying "Abuser-in-chief' Aiyar" had returned to justify his 2017 'Neech' jibe.

"... Aiyar then apologized & hid behind poor Hindi excuse. Now he says he was prophetic. Congr revoked his suspension last year for filthy outburst.Double speak & arrogance of @INCIndia on display again!" he said.

"Pak-crony Aiyar has the audacity to call PM 'anti-national'. Nation knows that @narendramodi ji is the epitome of 'Rashtra Bhakti'. Aiyar is known for 'Parivar Bhakti' as a (political) slave of the dynasty. It isn't surprising at all that all abusers are close Gandhi confidants."

BJP's IT Cell head Amit Malviya also referred to Congress leader Sam Pitroda, in the spotlight for his "hua to hua" remark on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

"Upset that Sam Pitroda was getting all the attention, the irrepressible Mani Shankar Aiyar pulls Pitroda's foot out of his mouth and puts it in his...Reiterates and justifies his ‘Neech' comment for PM!" he said on Twitter.

In the article, Aiyar said he has found out why Modi "loathes" Jawaharlal Nehru so much -- because Nehru had a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and was convinced that to pull Indians out of superstition, modern India must cultivate a “scientific temper”.

This, Aiyar said, drives Hindutva supporters "nuts because they like to believe the 'udan khatolas' of mythology were the earliest F-16s to be invented by Hindus, and that Hindu plastic surgery, not a transplant operation, is what led to an elephant's head surmounting Lord Ganesh."

"Both these stunningly illiterate claims come from the mouth of none less than the Prime Minister of our country, whose acquaintance with higher education has gone no further than lying about degrees from Delhi and Gujarat universities that he never got and who can obviously not tell a scientific proposition from a 'dhokla'," Aiyar wrote.

He also referred to Modi's recent comment that he ordered the Indian Air Force to strike at Balakot despite heavy cloud cover because he believed that heavy cloud cover at the time would allow Indian jets to evade Pakistani radar.

"This is to insult our brave airmen and, above all, the Chief of Air Staff. Not one of them was so ignorant of the fact that radar is not a telescope whose vision can be clouded over. Radar is used precisely because, whatever the weather conditions, it can pinpoint incoming aircraft," Aiyar asked.

"Did Modi take his senior-most Air Force officers for fools that he could trot out such ridiculous unscientific rubbish before them? And were they so pusillanimous that they dared not correct such a vacuous Prime Minister?" he wrote in the article, which comes as the long-drawn election process draws to a close with the final phase of voting scheduled on May 19.

Aiyar wrote that Modi needs to be warned that he is "guilty of anti-national activity in trying to ride on the sacrifices of our army and CRPF martyrs in a dirty election campaign; of defaming the Indian Air Force by portraying them as complaisant idiots in his scientific illiteracy."