Opposition can’t win polls, so they are abusing me: PM Modi

Buxar, May 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Opposition was competing against each other to abuse him, hours after Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar justified his 'neech aadmi' remark.

"Going by the response of people in the six phases of elections, it is clear that the opposition parties will face a humiliating defeat. Their anger has touched the seventh heaven now. They are trying to draw satisfaction from hurling abuses," Modi asserted during a rally in Bihar's Buxar.

PM Modi's speech comes against the backdrop of a new row over an opinion piece by Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Congress leader who was suspended by the party in the run up to the Gujarat assembly elections in 2017 for describing the Prime Minister as a 'neech aadmi'. The suspension was revoked less than a year later.

In an opinion piece that was first published by the Jammu and Kashmir-based Rising Kashmir newspaper, Mani Shankar Aiyar prophesized PM Modi-led BJP's defeat in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

"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?" he said. Aiyar's comment was seen as a reference to his description of PM Modi as a 'neech aadmi' ahead of the Gujarat elections.

BJP leaders rushed to slam Aiyar.