Zeenews Bureau
Surat: Raking up yet another face-off between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress in Gujarat, the saffron party activists in Surat termed the grand old party as ‘dogs’ inviting sharp criticism from all quarters including the state Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The controversy started when the BJP MP Mansukh Basawa while speaking at a public meeting said, “We don’t care about criticism. The dogs bark when an elephant crosses but the elephant never looks back. Similarly, we shouldn’t care about what the Congress leaders say.”
Immediately after these comments, the Surat unit of BJP came up with a hoarding at a public place that depicted some dogs barking at a picture of Narendra Modi with the Congress’ symbol ‘hand’ in the background. This irked Congress leaders in the state.
Later, some other defamatory hoardings were also put up at various roads in the diamond city, ridiculing the PM Manmohan Singh and Sonia and Rahul Gandhi on the issue of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail sector.
One of such hoardings had the caricature of Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi depicting a dialogue that read, “Mummy, Walmart fellow is my friend’s uncle. Please allow him to invest in India; to which Sonia is shown replying, “Beta, I am instructing Manmohan uncle to allow FDI in retail, let small people of India be ruined by it….!”
There was another hoarding featuring Dr Manmohan Singh that read, “Manmohan, why are you silent? You are a Hindustani….!”
It should be noted that the Chief Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold his ‘Sadbhavna Fast’ in the city on 18th of this month.
However, this act of ‘boot-licking’ irked the chief minister who tweeted asking BJP leaders to remove the hoardings.
“Read in papers about some inappropriate hoardings put up by BJP workers in Surat. In a democracy, we must avoid such acts and respect each other,” Modi wrote in his tweet.
First Published: Wednesday, December 14, 2011, 18:46