New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyer was angry on Tuesday over the media “hounding” him, not admitting that he has to blame himself for resurrecting the forgotten controversy of calling Prime Minister Modi a “neech aadmi” by referring to his 2017 remark that led to his suspension from the party.
He wondered why everyone pounced over his old remark and not on his latest claim that Modi was suffering from “a compulsive psychological disorder” as the root cause behind lying frequently.
His suspension was quietly revoked last year but without any assignment or post. Two lines in his lengthy article in a Kashmir daily that forced the Congress to distance from his views could have been avoided. Yet he wrote: “That would be (Modi’s ouster on May 23) a fitting end to the most foul-mouthed Prime Minister this country has seen or is likely to see. Remember how I described him on 7 December 2017?”
The full article condemns Prime Minister Modi for indulging in “anti-national” activities, spreading unscientific temper and insulting the Armed Forces. Anticipating the fallout of his remark, Rahul Gandhi tweeted immediately: “I’m pushing for a new language in politics. Let’s fight each other brutally on issues.
Let’s fight hard on ideology. But… let’s not use hatred and violence against each other. It’s bad for India.”On December 7, 2017, in the middle of Gujarat election, Aiyer had described Modi as “neech kism ka aadmi.” Modi promptly twisted it to present it as a caste slur, alleging that the Congress was targeting him because he was born in a low caste.
Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala, who blamed the Prime Minister for legitimising low-level discourse and dragging it lower than ever, disapproved Aiyer’s remark saying, “hatred, abuse and violence can be Modi’s weapons in politics but no Congressman should stoop that low. Some people do this to remain in news but the Congress does not support this tendency. That is not our tradition.”
The Congress is obviously rattled by Aiyer’s intervention because of the baggage he carries but does not want to concede that the discourse was lowered by their leaders. Asked about the timing of the article, Aiyer insists: “Read the article. Don’t try to create a false impression using two lines.”
In the article, Aiyer referred to Jawaharlal Nehru’s commitment to the task of creating ‘scientific temper’ and added: “An expression that drives sanghis nuts because they like to believe the ‘udan khatolas’ of mythology were the earliest F-16s to be invented by Hindus, and that Hindu plastic surgery, not a transplant operation, is what led to an elephant’s head surmounting Lord Ganesh.”
