I never compared Modi to Gandhi: Gadkari

Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari on Sunday denied making a direct comparison between Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Mahatma Gandhi.

"I never compared Modi to Mahatma Gandhi," Gadkari told reporters in Bengaluru, asserting that there were video clippings of his speech to prove it.

"I said that Modi, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Deedayal Upadhyaya, was carrying out programmes to help the poor and was following in their footsteps," he said a day after his controversial remark.

On his first visit to Gujarat as BJP chief, Gadkari had on Saturday drawn parallels between Mahatma Gandhi and Modi, saying both believed that politics was an instrument to alleviate poverty.

Gadkari had made the remarks, which was severely criticised by the Congress, during his visit that coincided with the 62nd death anniversary of the Mahatma.

He asked the media to present "news as news and not to mix views" and to be fair and to report "only what is said."