Sushma Swaraj slams Priyanka Gandhi, Mamata for comparing PM Modi to Duryodhana

New Delhi, May 08: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday slammed Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Duryodhana, the evil prince from Mahabharata.

Swaraj responded to the Congress leader by saying that even her brother, Rahul Gandhi, had displayed egoism.

"Let me remind you that the limits of ego culminated on the day when Rahul ji insulted his own prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh ji, and tore up and threw out the ordinance issued by the President. Who is telling whom?" the BJP leader wrote on Twitter.

"Mamataji, you crossed all limits today. You are the Chief Minister of a state and Modiji is the country's Prime Minister. You have to talk to him tomorrow. This is why I would like to remind you of a couplet written by Bashir Badr: Rage all you want but I just have this one request from you, do not feel ashamed when we have to become friends again someday," she tweeted.

"Money does not matter to me. That is why when Narendra Modi came to Bengal and accused my party of being tolabaaz, I wanted to give him a tight slap of democracy," she said.

On Monday, the West Bengal Chief Minister had said that she did not return PM Modi's calls to discuss the effects of Cyclone Fani because she "does not want to share the dais with an expiry PM". "I do not consider him a Prime Minister now. When the new prime minister comes, we will speak with that person," she added.

The war of words took a turn for the worse after PM Modi made the extortionist reference. "If I am a tolabaaz, what are you? Your entire body - from head to feet - is drenched in the blood of people. Only riots, only riots and only riots," she thundered at a rally in West Bengal's Bishnupur.

In a veiled attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said the Mahabharata character Duryodhana too had "such arrogance".