AHMEDABAD: Smarting under the insult of being denied a visa to visit the US, a fuming Gujarat CM Narendra Modi on Friday refused to take this as a personal embarrassment and instead tried to project the move as "an affront to the Indian Constitution and sovereignty".

A combative Modi told mediapersons he was writing to the PM to take the necessary steps to "uphold the self-respect of Indians in the wake of this US attack".

For his US visit, he said, he had got political clearance from the Government of India on February 4, followed by PM's clearance on March 2. He regretted that the application had been turned down only at the last moment.

"The US should know that the entire minority community has been hounded out of Kashmir because of Pakistani backing to terrorists, but the US does not behave in this way with the Pakistani head of state. Similarly, minorities in Bangladesh are being persecuted for the last 30 years but the US has never allowed this violation of human rights to interfere with its diplomatic relations with Bangladesh," Modi said.