Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala on Thursday had a slip of tongue moment when he wrongly attributed Draupadi's 'cheerharan' in Mahabharat to Goddess Sita.
"BJP lost badly in the previous elections. Truth, democracy, law, and morals will win. BJP wants to do cheer haran of democracy, just like cheer haran of Goddess Sita. But they will lose [in Rajya Sabha polls] and their masks will fall off," Surjewala said during a press conference.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala slammed the Congress leader and said this was a slip of character and not slip of tongue.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "Even as a Muslim I know that Cheer Haran was not of Maa Sita but Draupadi! But then Congress denied existence of Shri Ram!"
"You can wear Janeu on the coat but what is inside you will always come out! #MannMeinRomeNotRam," he added.
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Meanwhile, during the press conference, Surjewala accused the government of betraying the country's farmers and said the minimum support prices (MSP) of Kharif crops announced for 2022-23 are meagre and far below the rate of inflation.
He said that instead of increasing the income of farmers, the Narendra Modi government has increased their pain a hundred times.
He shared a chart of increase in MSPs of various crops for the Kharif season and said the rise is much below the rate of inflation.
"The fraud of support price announced by Modi government has been exposed. Once again the Modi government has betrayed the farmers of the country in declaring the support price of Kharif crops for 2022-23. Far from increasing the income of the farmer, the pain of the farmer has increased a hundred times," he said in a statement.
He said on the one hand the government is not buying enough crops on MSP and on the other, the increase in input costs has reduced the income of farmers to half.
The Congress leader said the RBI has recently pegged the inflation rate at 6.7 per cent, which is at its highest level and increase in MSP rates is below the inflation rate.
Surjewala said while making a comparison of Kharif MSP increase with inflation projection, in 11 of 14 crops the MSP increase does not cover the projected RBI inflation of 6.7 per cent.
He also shared a chart of the cost of production of various crops as against the MSP, which is not 50 per cent over the C2 formula as devised by the Swaminathan Committee.
(With PTI inputs)
