Sharif’s ‘village woman’ remark kicks off storm

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday slammed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for having reportedly referred to his Indian counterpart as “village woman.” Terming the description the biggest insult to both the Indian Prime Minister as also to the country, Mr Modi while addressing a rally here said, “How dare you (Sharif) address my nation’s Prime Minister as a village woman There cannot be a bigger insult of the Indian Prime Minister. We can fight with him on policies but this we will not tolerate. This nation of 1.2 billion will not tolerate its Prime Minister’s insult.” The controversy arose after Pakistani renowned journalist Hamid Mir revealed that Sharif had used the description “dehati aurat” (village woman) during a breakfast meeting with himself and Indian TV journalist Barkha Dutt while taking exceptions to Dr Singh complaining to President Obama about Sharif. Mir quoted Sharif as saying, “It seems as if Manmohan Singh went to complain to Obama about me like a “dehati aurat”. Rejecting the charge, Barkha Dutt tweeted saying that Mr Sharif never said anything to that effect and that Mr Mir’s version is a distortion. While conceding that there were bits of interaction that were off the record but even they did not include any pejorative words about Dr Singh. Mr Mir, however, tweeted later saying that Dutt was not present throughout the interaction and that she had to leave in-between to get her camera. He even clarified that nothing objectionable was said about the Indian Prime Minister. Hitting out hard on the comments Mr Modi said, “The journalists who were sitting in front of Nawaz Sharif when he was insulting our Prime Minister should also answer to the people of my country.” He added, “I want to ask those journalists, I don’t know who were they but journalists of my country who were having sweets sitting with Nawaz Sharif when he was abusing our Prime Minister calling him village woman, I expected those Indian journalists, the country expected them, to refuse the sweets and walk out.” Mr Sharif, in an interview to an Indian channel, said Dr Singh “is a good man”. When asked about the recent LoC incident, Mr Sharif opined that the personnel of the military and the foreign office of both the countries jointly enquire into the matter or could have the issue referred to the UN for an independent investigation.