New delhi: After BJP’s Giriraj Singh made controversial racist remarks about Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, sources have said that party chief Amit Shah pulled up the Union minister, but in the process Shah also took a dig at the Congress.
According to CNN-IBN sources Shah told Singh, “Let’s not attack any leader personally. This was a mistake made by Congress by attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Earlier in the day Singh had said, “If Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian and if she wasn’t white skinned, would Congress accept her as a leader?”
The minister, who had courted controversies earlier during Lok Sabha elections when he had said people opposed to Narendra Modi can go to Pakistan, also mocked Rahul Gandhi’s absence from the political scene and likened it to the “missing Malaysian airliner”.
“Imagine a situation, if Congress was in power instead of us and had Rahul been the Prime Minister, and if for some reason, the PM had disappeared for more than 47 days.
“Absence of Congress Vice President is similar to that of the missing Malaysian airliner that still has not been located. The same way the Congress leader was not present in the budget session. No one in Congress is ready to speak. This is unfortunate for the Congress and a joke for the country,” he told journalists in Hajipur, Bihar, last night.
When asked about his controversial comments, Singh, who was in Delhi on Wednesday, initially refused to speak to the media. As his remarks snowballed into a major controversy, the BJP leader said if his comments had hurt Gandhi, he regretted them.
“If Soniaji and Rahulji have been hurt by my remarks, I express my regret,” he said even as he maintained that his remarks were “off the record” and suggested that media was blowing it out of proportion.
Singh was slammed because of his remarks with opposition leaders saying it reflected the thought process of the government even as BJP responded that it was up to party president Amit Shah to take a call on the issue.
“The remark made by a minister on Sonia Gandhi is highly condemnable. This reflects people’s thinking. Such remarks have not been made for the first time.Talk which is considered to be wrong and condemnable in society, when such things are said… the matter does not remain confined to the person who has said it, it is a reflection on the entire party and government as to what their thought process is,” said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Lalu Prasad said he had crossed borders of indecency and demanded action against him.
“He should be made to wear bangles, vermilion, bindi, and his face should be blackened” as he had “crossed borders of indecency,” he told reporters after arriving here from New Delhi.
Singh’s Cabinet colleague DV Sadananda Gowda, meanwhile, said that it was up to the BJP President to take a call on the issue.
“It is left to the party president. The party president is a man of discipline. Wherever he sees some person going wrong, he will take him into confidence and he will then be advised not to do such things. It is not fair on my part to comment about the statements of my colleague,” he said.
Congress has already demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the immediate dismissal of Singh.
“Congress strongly deprecates and condemns the intemperate and distasteful remarks of Singh, bordering on insanity… Prime Minister must dismiss such a minister and apologise to the nation,” said the party’s communication department in-charge, Randeep Surjewala.
“It appears that continuous quest to appease Prime Minister has made him lose his balance. Such remarks are reflective of lack of moral fibre in BJP and its cadre,” the Congress said.
“I think Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept him in the cabinet only to make such statements and probably BJP does not have a better leader for Bihar,” senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh said.
Youth Congress workers today staged a protest by throwing eggs and tomatoes at the residence of Union Minister Giriraj Singh for his controversial remarks on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
A group of Youth Congress workers arrived at the residence of the Union Minister of State for MSME in Anandpuri area under the limits of Sri Krishnapuri police station here and threw eggs and tomatoes as part of their protest against his comments.
The protesters also tore off hoardings and posters of the MoS at his residence.
An aide of the minister Jay Singh said he and some other persons were at the house at that time, but no family members of the minister were present.
Bihar Youth Congress president Kumar Ashish told PTI “Today’s protest is merely a trailer. We will show the full movie when the Minister comes to Patna.”
“We can not tolerate uncharitable comments of the minister against our leaders,” he said.
The Police rushed to Singh’s residence after the protests.
Singh is not the first minister or a BJP leader to make controversial remarks that have caused embarrassment to the Modi government.
Parliament was rocked during the winter session by communal comments of minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi during the Delhi elections that was disapproved by the prime minister. The party also had to distance itself from similar offensive comments of BJP MPs Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj.
The remarks of the minister comes on top of a rash of controversies involving political leaders who have made sexist and gender-insensitive comments.
Recently Rajya Sabha was rocked by the comments of senior JD(U) leader who spoke of the colour and body shape of South Indian women that led to a row with HRD Minister Smriti Irani. Yadav was forced to regret his remarks on both the counts.
Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar is also in the eye of a storm over his alleged advise to agitating nurses that they should not stage hunger strike in the sun because it will make them ‘dark’ and ‘ruin their marital prospects’.
However, Parsekar today denied making any such remarks. He said he knew the protesting nurse and hence remarked that she appeared different after sitting in the sun.
