Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday evening led the poll victory celebrations at the BJP headquarters by launching a scathing attack on the Congress, stressing that the “reverberations of the mandate would travel far and wide”.

Riding high on the outcome of the first electoral test after the short-of-majority performance in the Lok Sabha polls, Modi used the choicest words to castigate the Congress. He accused the “parasitic Congress” of being part of an “international conspiracy to weaken the country” and trying to spread the “poison of caste in the society”.

“The Congress believes that being in power is their birthright and therefore they feel like a fish out of water when out of power. The entire country is watching how the Congress party is spreading the poison of caste in the country. The people who have been living luxurious lives generation after generation are instigating people to fight over castes,” Modi said addressing the party workers.

Modi obliquely targeted Rahul Gandhi’s pitch for a caste-based census in the country and sought to use the victory in Haryana to portray it as a rejection of the idea. He stressed that the BJP stood for four sections in the society: “poor, farmers, youth and women”.

He said that the people of Haryana had given a befitting reply to the Congress by returning the BJP for a "historic" third consecutive term.