Condemning the attack on Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) legislators in the Assembly for taking oath in Hindi, the Congress termed the incident “shameful”, “illegal” and “constitutionally impermissible”. “It has to be condemned by all right-thinking individuals. It is constitutionally impermissible and democratically shameful,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said at a press briefing here. “If everybody does not condemn it, it will have long-term, dangerous implications. Hindi is not a language of permission, it is a national language,” he said. Stating that Hindi is our mother tongue and Marathi mausi (aunt), Singhvi said, “Using one is not an insult to another.” While Home Minister P Chidambaram refused to answer any queries on the issue, senior Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi said, “This is not only an attempt to humiliate Hindi language but is also against the Constitution, which has granted national language status to it.”