On Monday, in a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi alleged that the “boxer” PM was supposed to fight against unemployment and corruption but he instead punched (ghoonsa maara) his “coach” in his face, referring to the alleged mistreatment meted out to veterans like Advani.

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Addressing a rally at Haryana's Bhiwani - known for sending four boxers from the district to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 - the Congress chief drew an analogy between a boxer and PM Modi to illustrate what he claimed was the failures of the NDA government.

This is not the first time that Rahul Gandhi has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of mistreating Advani Ji. Last month, the he alleged that PM Modi had "kicked" out his “political guru” from the stage. "Advani ji ko stage se laat maarke uthar diya gaya hai (Advani ji has been kicked out from the state)," he had said at a rally in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar. He had also said that Prime Minister Modi “insulted” his guru and “booted” him out.

Earlier, Advani, in a blog post titled “Nation first, party next, self last" had said the BJP never considered its political opponents as "anti-national".

“The essence of Indian democracy is respect for diversity and freedom of expression. Right from its inception, the BJP has never regarded those who disagree with us politically as our “enemies”, but only as our adversaries. Similarly, in our conception of Indian nationalism, we have never regarded those who disagree with us politically as “anti-national”. The party has been committed to freedom of choice of every citizen at personal as well as political level,” he wrote.

Earlier, Shatrughan Sinha, who recently quit the BJP and joined Congress Party, had hit out at the BJP party leadership for dropping the BJP patriarch’s name from the list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

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