Amarinder Singh slams Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi

AMRITSAR: Taking a dig at Arun Jaitley, Congress nominee from Amritsar Amarinder Singh today said his ruling out any apology by Narendra Modi over the 2002 Godhra riots shows he is under a spell of "intoxicated arrogance".

"His outright rejection of Narendra Modi apologising for what happened in Gujarat in 2002 only betrays an intoxicated arrogance that seems to have taken better of him," he said. Reminding Jaitley that innocent people were killed in Gujarat in the name of religion, Singh said, "Modi was the chief minister heading the state administration. He does owe answers and apology."

Taking pot-shot at his BJP rival, Singh said "not surprisingly our esteemed guest from New Delhi subscribes to no different views", in an obvious reference to his being an outsider.In an apparent attack on Modi, Singh decribed the BJP prime ministerial candidate's thumping of his chest publicly as "chauvinistic pride and shameless arrogance".

"This election season has thrown up many a xenophobes, fascists and pseudo-nationalists camouflaging as ultra-nationalists beating their chest with chauvinistic pride and shameless arrogance," Singh wrote in a post on Facebook without taking Modi's name.

Claiming that it was Congress which had laid down sacrifices for the country, Singh said, "Just want to remind them that this country has been nourished and nurtured with the blood and great sacrifices of our great leaders who incidentally all belonged to the Congress".

"Apparently that happens to be the reason of chest beating to pre-empt people from questioning their fascist ultra-nationalism. Unlike the Congress, our ultra-nationalists do not have even a single example of sacrifice for the country," he added.