It was September 2013. The Lok Sabha elections were just around the corner. The then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had labelled his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh as ‘dehati aurat’ (rustic woman).
Although Manmohan Singh was his rival, Narendra Modi defended the former Prime Minister in the face of external aggression.
“We will fight with our Prime Minister in India. We will argue over policies. But he is the Prime Minister of 125 crore people. Nawaz Sharif, what is your aukat (status)?” Narendra Modi had said back then.
He continued, “You refer to my Prime Minister as ‘dehati aurat’ and say that he complains about you to Barack Obama.”
“I don’t know which journalist was there at that time and eating sweets offered by Nawaz Sharif while he was abusing my Prime Minister,” PM Modi had said.
“The whole nation was hoping that the journalist would have stood up to Nawaz Sharif and walked away from the scene after discarding his sweets,” the incumbent Prime Minister had stated in 2013.
Manmohan Singh breathed his last on 26th December 2024. He was 92 years old.
