Surat: A week after daring the Centre to remove Gujarat from the list of centrally-assisted states, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has hit out at the Congress again.

"I invite the whole Congress regime, please do not waste a single day, book me for sedition today and hang me. Let me see how they can," he said while addressing a public function here on Sunday.

"But how can they? They have not been able to hang Afzal Guru," he added referring to the man convicted for terror attack on Parliament in 2001. Modi has been playing political rhetoric again in recent days. At a function in Vadodara last week, he said Gujarat gives Rs 40,000 crore as taxes to the Centre and receives only 2.5 per cent of it in return.

He asked the government to stop collecting taxes from Gujarat and also stop aid to the state. The Congress questioned Modi's remarks and said they were "nothing less than an assault on the idea of India."

During recent Gujarat elections, Modi's controversial statements reaped rich dividends for him. He had taken on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for calling him a 'maut ka saudagar (merchant of death).'

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks at itself at the only party strong enough to deal with terror and is not leaving any opportunity to hit out at the Congress. Modi has kick-started the BJP's new campaign before general elections due next year. And he is looking ahead to a larger role in national politics.

Source : PTI