No Modi talk: Congress imposes gag order on spokespersons after Aiya’s gaffe

The Congress party on Friday instructed all its spokespersons to refrain from commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his public addresses.

The instruction came after a political slugfest erupted ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections due to suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s ‘Neech’ remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress party has faced a lot of criticism after Aiyar on Thursday termed Prime Minister Modi as ‘neech aadmi’ (low-born) and said he was not civilised enough and should refrain from practicing “dirty politics”.

However, Aiyar clarified that the word ‘neech’ holds different meanings, adding he would want to apologise for the wrong translation. Gujarat has a total number of 182 assembly seats and the polling will be held in two phases. Voting in 89 constituencies of Saurashtra and South Gujarat region will be held in the first phase on December 9, while the remaining 93 constituencies in Central and northern regions go for polls in the second phase on December 14.

The counting of the two-phase election is slated on December 18.