Modi taunts Congress for not naming Rahul as PM candidate

He also mentioned 2004, when Congress MPs elected Sonia Gandhi to be the Prime Minister but she instead nominated Manmohan Singh for the top job.

Modi claimed that after Independence, "everyone" want Sardar Patel to be the Prime Minister but somehow Jawaharlal Nehru got the top post.

Invoking his backward class background, he said, "How can people with big names contest against a worker? They feel insulted. For those born in higher clan cannot think of being pitted against a person born in a backward caste, whose mother used to clean utensils and fill water of others...How can they contest against someone who sold tea?"

Responding to the comment by Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar that he should focus on selling tea than dreaming about becoming the Prime Minister, Modi said all the tea vendors are today feeling proud that one among them was contesting for the top post.

The BJP leader has himself been saying that he used to sell tea in trains during his initial years.