BHOPAL: Former minister and senior BJP leader Kusum Mehdeleís tweet over decoration of the Mahakal Jyotirling in Ujjain has kicked up political dust in the state. In her tweet on Saturday, Mehdele raised a question mark over the necessity of dolling up the Jyotirling.
It all began after the BJP national general secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya, posted a picture of Mahakalís decoration on his official Twitter page. Mehdele, however, wanted to know the rationale behind the dolling up of the Mahakal Jyotirling in Ujjain.
The Congress ripped into her remark and asked her to make her stand clear on the issue. The party also wanted to know the rationale behind her objectionable remark against Mahakal's ornamentation.
It is, however, a regular practice of Vijayavargia to share photographs of Mahakal on his Twitter and Facebook page.
Replying to Vijayavargiaís tweet, Mehdele wrote: "Shiv ke ling ka shrangar? Ajib nahi lagta! Shrangar to shivji ki murti ka hona chahiye. (The idol of Lord Shiva should be decked up)."
As a senior journalist inquired about the problem Mehdele has with the decoration of Lord Mahakal, because this practice has been going on for centuries, she gave the same reply to Pateria as she gave to Vijayvargiya.
Free Press contacted her to confirm if she had tweeted it, since the Twitter account of Mehdele was not verified. She replied: "As my name is written on the Twitter account, itís only I who has written that. Do you have a problem?"
When she was told that the Congress leaders had objected to her post, she said, "Whatever I had to write, I wrote; I donít want to comment on the Congress leaders' reactions."
Reacting to her statement, Congress spokesperson Narendra Saluja said it was an absurd statement by a senior BJP leader and she must clarify her stand on what she actually wanted to say.
This is not the first time that Kusum Mehdele has kicked off a controversy. She had hit the headlines when she kicked a boy in Panna town. She was Cabinet minister at that time.
