Jignesh Mevani insults PM Modi, calls him 'namak haram'

New Delhi: Dalit leader and Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani, recently hurled insults galore at Prime Minister Narendra Modi while questioning his silence on recent attacks against migrant workers in Gujarat.

Speaking at a rally in Patna on Wednesday, Mevani repeatedly called PM Modi 'namak haram' while attempting to highlight the plight of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in Gujarat. "This captain is namak haram (disloyal). Workers from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, UP and Bihar toil hard to build roads and flyovers in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Baroda. In that Gujarat, workers from UP and Bihar were assaulted for 12 to 15 days but this namak haram did not utter a word," he said. In fact, in his entire nine-minute speech at Gandhi Maidan during a 'BJP Haraao, Desh Bachaao' rally organised by CPI-M, Mevani would use the word six times. "Shame on you Narendra Modi, shame on you."

Mevani has repeatedly attacked PM Modi and the central government over a number of issues, including job creation and the economy. And he is not the first to have uttered insults agains the PM at a public forum. 

Congress social media head Divya Spandana was recently booked for allegedly posting tweets which insulted PM Modi. Others like Congress' Digvijaya Singh have called him Ravana, Anand Sharma has said he is mentally unstable and Pramod Tiwari - head of Congress in UP - compared PM Modi to Hitler and Mussolini.

The BJP and the PM himself have countered the insults by saying that these show the level of desperation in rival parties - especially in Congress. "Where is the decency in the language Congress leaders have used for me? What did I do to deserve this? Is it my crime that the people of India have reposed their faith in me," he had tweeted after Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar had raised a massive storm by calling him neech.