Mallikarjun Kharge (Image/ANI)

New Delhi: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge Made a scathing attack on the Prime Minister on Thursday Narendra Modi over the US President donald trumpControversial ‘hellhole’ comment in the context of India. He questioned the government’s silence and asked whether PM Modi is ‘scared’.Referring to the controversy in his post on X, Kharge wrote, “Modi ji’s dear friend “Namaste Trump” has shared a note abusing India and using extremely derogatory words. Modi ji is completely silent on these ridiculous statements.” Quoting the Ministry of External Affairs’ brief response, he wrote, “The MEA spokesperson said ‘I’ll leave it at this. Narendra Modi ji, what are you scared of?’The Congress leader further highlighted the contribution of Indians to the United States and asked why the government was not raising the issue at the highest level. “Indians have played a vital role in America’s success. What’s stopping us from taking this up at the highest levels of the US government?” He said.Stepping up his attack, Kharge linked the issue to broader India-US relations, referring to trade tensions, earlier diplomatic exchanges and tariff disputes. He alleged that the government has failed to protect India’s interests on many points.“From designing the adversarial India-US trade agreement to Mr Trump’s earlier claims of mediating to prevent war during Operation Sindoor, to smiling at Mr Trump when he said ‘BRICS is dead’ and to the US imposing 50% tariffs on India – at every step Modi ji has mortgaged India’s interests!” He has written.He urged the PM to respond despite the ongoing election campaign and said he hoped PM Modi would find time to address the ‘threat and anger of 140 crore Indians’.The comments come after the US President re-shared an anti-immigration post on his platform Truth Social, in which India and China were referred to in derogatory terms.“A child here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the whole family over from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet. You don’t have to go very far to see this. English is not spoken here anymore. There is almost no loyalty to this country among the immigrant class coming in today, which wasn’t always the case,” the statement said.The statement further alleged systemic bias in the employment and immigration systems. “You must be from India or China because almost all the internal mechanisms are operated by Indians and Chinese.” The Post also claimed that the integration seen in previous waves of European immigration is “long overdue”, arguing that the United States has moved from a “melting pot” to “cash in the pot”.External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a media briefing that the government had taken note of the reports, but declined to provide further details. “We have seen some reports. I’ll leave it at that,” he said.