Rahul Gandhi refuses to apologies over rape remark

New Delhi : Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who has been harried by the BJP leader to apologies over his rape remark made during an election rally, countered by saying first PM Modi should apologiese. 

"I will never apologise to these people, thank you," declared the Congress leader, alleging that he was not allowed to respond to the BJP attacks in parliament.

The 49-year-old leader claimed that he is being targeted to ensure that the focus shifts from massive protests in North East to him.

If someone should apologies then it should be PM Narendra Modi, because of whom the North East is burning in flames, also for his speech calling Delhi the rape capital of India," said the Congress leader to reporters and in a tweet.

"I have a clip on my phone where you can hear Modi calling Delhi 'rape capital' I am going to post that on Twitter, everyone can see it. The main agenda is that Modi and Amit Shah have burned North East. They are saying this about me to divert attention," he said outside parliament.

The trigger for the BJP protests was a comment that Rahul Gandhi made at an election rally in Jharkhand yesterday: "Narendra Modi had said 'Make in India' but nowadays wherever you look, it is 'Rape in India'."

He said: "Let me clarify. I said Narendra Modi said there will be Make In India, we thought newspapers would have headline with Make In India, but when you open the papers, you only see 'Rape in India' everywhere."

He also spoke about the excerpts from his meeting with former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan.

"Our biggest strength was economy. I met Raghuram Rajan recently; he told me that no one in US, Europe is talking about India. No one is talking about the economy. Violence, division is all that is being spoken about. Our reputation is tarnished totally. Modi should answer why this reputation is lost, why there is unemployment," said Rahul Gandhi.