Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday challenged the Congress to contest ongoing elections in the name of Rajiv Gandhi if it was so proud of his legacy. He challenged the grand old party to fight the remaining elections in the name of former prime minister in Punjab, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. The statement comes after the Congress attacked Modi for referring to Rajiv Gandhi a corrupt number 1.

Addressing a rally in Jharkhand, the Prime Minister said: “Namdar (Rahul Gandhi) and his friends keep abusing the Prime Minister but a storm has erupted after I reminded the corruption of Bofors…the more these people cry the more people will know about their old truth…people should know how one family looted the country,” he said.

Modi further said: “I challenge the family of Naamdar…I challenge their raagdarbaris that if they have guts they can fight elections in the name of the former prime minister against whom the charges of corruption were leveled.”

Earlier, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram had attacked the Prime Minister saying he should know that no religion allows anyone to speak ill of the dead. However, BJP leader Amit Malviya said that death doesn’t absolve an individual of his sins. He further said that Sikh genocide, Bhopal Gas tragedy, and Bofors were just a few of Rajiv Gandhi’s abiding legacies of moral and financial corruption.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also hit out at the grand old party saying: “The Congress and its President can call an honest Prime Minister ‘Chor’. No Model Code of Conduct is preventing that. If the PM calls the Congress legacy as ‘Corrupt No. 1’ the Congress complains that the Model Code of Conduct is violated. Are there two Model Codes of Conduct?”

The whole controversy started after the Prime Minister while addressing a rally called Rajiv Gandhi the corrupt number 1.