Ranchi/IBNS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday slammed the Congress-led INDIA bloc for remaining mum over Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant's sexist remark against BJP leader Shaina NC, who joined the Eknath Shinde-led Sena faction to contest the Maharashtra assembly polls.

Addressing a rally ahead of the Jharkhand Assembly election to be held this month, PM Modi said the opposition used "foul language against a woman leader".

Earlier Shaina NC, who is contesting from Maharashtra's Mumbadevi on a Sena-Eknath Shinde faction ticket, slammed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) after Arvind Sawant, an MP from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, allegedly used a derogatory term against her, media reports said.

Expressing her outrage, Shaina questioned why leaders like Priyanka Gandhi and Priyanka Chaturvedi from the MVA, which comprises Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, had not condemned the remark, according to an India Today report.

“I want to know the official stand of the Maha Vikas Aghadi. You target a woman, and the apology comes only after Nagpada police filed an FIR, 30 hours later,” she remarked, referring to Sawant’s apology, said the report.

The INDIA bloc, allied with the Thackeray Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP in Maharashtra and with Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the latter, is seen as the BJP's primary opposition in each.

Speaking in Jharkhand on Monday, Modi said "Mothers and daughters are in shock (and that the) people will teach them a lesson."

He alleged that the Congress "humiliated" Sita Soren, BJP's candidate in this election, who is also the sister-in-law of Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

Modi said the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance betrayed the youth of Jharkhand.

"But with our resolutions, the situation is going to change," the PM promised.

Attacking the INDIA block further, he said, "Congress and its allies have ruined the states in which they came to power by telling lies. That is why you should never trust the announcements made by Congress and its allies."

While Maharashtra goes to polls on November 20. Jharkhand will vote in two phases between November 13-20.