Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed were on Wednesday unanimous in their condemnation of BJP union minister Giriraj Singh's 'vulgar and derogatory' remarks on Sonia Gandhi.
"This is a very derogatory remark, it is highly objectionable, very wrong. What if someone says this to their daughters or mothers or party workers, how would they feel? This is dirty politics," Lalu told ANI.
"They have a vulgar mindset and you can only expect such a statement from them. One should use civilized language," said Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed.
The controversy erupted when Giriraj Singh, sitting among a group of his supporters in Hajipur, asked jocularly whether Sonia's "white skin" had been her ticket to securing the top job in the Congress Party.
Stoking the controversy further, he queried, "If Rajiv (Gandhi) had married a Nigerian, things would have been different."
Not a stranger to controversies, Giriraj Singh had last year said that critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, should move to Pakistan.