Against the backdrop of EU envoys engaging with Narendra Modi, Union Minister Manish Tewari today hit out at the Gujarat Chief Minister, asking why was he not taking responsibility for the 2002 riots rather than the country being subjected to "homilies" by foreign diplomats.

As Tewari asserted that it is "ignominious" to be reminded by foreigners, the Congress too did not spare the BJP leader, dubbing him as "anti-poor and anti-women" and one "who does not know how to spell agriculture".

"Why does the Chief Minister not step up and take responsibility for what happened under his watch rather than the country be subjected to homilies by foreign diplomats?" he asked in response to a question by newsmen in Chennai on the European Union ambassadors having told Modi that accountability must be fixed for the "Gujarat pogrom."

Tewari also took a swipe at Modi in a post on social networking site Twitter.

"EU says accountability for Gujarat Pogrom must be fixed. Does buck not stop with their lunch guest? Ignominious to be reminded by foreigners," Tewari posted.

The EU said the issue of 2002 post-Godhra riots figured at its meeting with Modi, who had met the EU delegation over lunch last month in New Delhi after BJP's victory in the Gujarat assembly polls.

At the AICC briefing in Delhi, party spokesperson Renuka Chowdhary sidestepped questions on the "clean chit" given to Modi by the European Union and instead asked whether the Chief Minister has got visa from the US.

"He has no respect for his own wife or someone else's wife.... He is anti-poor, anti-rural development, anti-women. He lives in urban fantasies... And he does not know how to spell agriculture," Chowdhary said.

The party also sought to project BJP as a divided house saying why should it waste time to know who is BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate when there were seven contenders in the opposition party.

Leader of key NDA constituent JD(U) Sharad Yadav ridiculed the "search" at the moment for a PM candidate and said it is being undertaken in such a way as if it is a research for a "nuclear bomb".

Yadav's party colleague and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, meanwhile, angrily dismissed as rubbish the talk that he is a potential PM candidate.