Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi tells Jairam Ramesh to join BJP if Narendra Modi appears a threat

NEW DELHI: The Congress has dismissed rural development minister Jairam Ramesh's public admission that the main opposition's likely prime ministerial candidate, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, poses a challenge for the party.

Without naming Modi, Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said on Friday, "We think the person named (Modi) might be a challenge for the BJP or NDA. But he is not a challenge for the Congress." When asked whether the party was pulling up Ramesh, Ahmed said, "There is no question of defending or supporting or pulling up. This is the considered view of the Congress. What he (Ramesh) has expressed are his own personal views."

Senior Congress leader and former spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi was, however, more direct in ticking off Ramesh as he told TV channels, "If Jairam feels Modi is a threat and a challenge, he should resign from the Congress and join the BJP in Gujarat." The party refused to be drawn into this verbal slugfest, terming the view and the counter-view as the leaders' personal opinions.

Ramesh had conceded that Modi, who has been recently made the chief of the BJP's campaign committee for the Lok Sabha polls, posed a managerial as well as ideological challenge for the Congress, dubbing the Gujarat chief minister as India's "first authentic fascist".

This was the first time any Congress leader recognised the chief minister as a challenge for the party, which had always been dismissive of Modi and had maintained that his influence was restricted to Gujarat.