The poster of Sonia Gandhi as Lakshmi Bai

Bhopal, June 25: After Durga, Sonia has been depicted as Rani Lakshmi Bai.

An angry Congress today threw out “loyalist” Kailash Sonkar, a former MLA from Jabalpur who portrayed the Congress president as the Jhansi queen.

A hysterical Sonkar cried foul, saying he had committed no wrong. Moments later, when he regained composure, the advocate in him took over.

“I actually believe that Soniaji’s efforts are no less than that of Lakshmi Bai. If the high command feels we committed a wrong, I will respond to the party’s notice legally and, if required, apologise.”

AICC general secretary V. Narayanswamy asked Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Subhash Yadav to expel Sonkar for six years.

Two corporators, Ram Singh Jat and Lakshmi Ben, were punished along with him. The three leaders had jointly published the poster showing Sonia as Lakshmi Bai.

Party insiders said Narayanswamy was enraged at the manner in which Rahul Gandhi was shown strapped to Sonia in the poster — like the Jhansi queen who carried her adopted son Damodar Rao on her back.

It is believed that Narayanswamy acted swiftly to pre-empt a repeat of the recent controversy in which the Congress’s Moradabad unit depicted Sonia as Durga.

Narayanswamy had a stern warning for those who wanted to go public with their fertile imagination.

“Such indiscretion and unauthorised gestures will invite instant expulsion,” he said.

Party sources in Bhopal said Narayanswamy was conscious of the fact that a lawyer in Bihar has moved court over the Moradabad poster, arguing that Sonia’s portrayal as a Goddess Durga had “hurt millions of Hindus”.

In the Madhya Pradesh Congress, Sonkar is known as a leader who finds it difficult to rein in his enthusiasm.

He was drafted in the Youth Congress by former Union minister Prakash Chand Sethi. Sonkar has a reputation for indulging in gimmicks.

But Manak Aggarwal, the general secretary of the state Congress, gave him the benefit of doubt, saying Sonkar had no “malafide intentions”.

But BJP spokesperson Archana Chitnis saw a deeper design. She accused the Congress of “incorporating a person of foreign origin” in the country’s pantheon of great leaders.

“Sonkar’s depiction of Sonia is a “great insult to the great heroine of the country’s freedom struggle,” she said.