Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the nation, Jat, farmer community, says Anurag Thakur

Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the nation, Jat, farmer community, says Anurag Thakur

Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur on Friday demanded an apology from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over an reported incident in which the latter filmed an MP mimicking Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankar. While one MP mimicking the Vice- President was a “shameful action”, the other “shameful thing” was another MP filming the first one mimicking the Vice-President.

He also criticised the Opposition parties for not participating in Parliament proceedings when important Bills were passed. Speaking to reporters in Chennai, Mr. Thakur pointed out that the Speaker called them and sought their suggestions but “they wanted to play politics. They did not participate when important Bills were passed in Parliament. They just wanted to stand outside the Parliament building, do mimickry about the Vice-President,” he said.

“It was such a shameful action of an MP. The other shameful thing was a senior leader of the Congress party was making a video. It seemed that he is unemployed, he does not have any work and so he was making a video. Rather than stopping the other MP, that another MP was himself shooting a video, itself shows how serious and sincere they are towards constitutional bodies, institutions and people like the Vice President,” Mr. Thakur said.

The Union Minister was responding to a query over Mr. Gandhi’s observation that unemployment was the reason behind the security breach in the Parliament. The Minister said it was not for the first time the Congress and their allies were speaking against the President and the Prime Minister. “They have not mocked the individual but the institution, he is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. He is the Vice President of India. He comes from the Jat community.”

“Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the nation, to the Jat community, to the farmer community. Otherwise, they will do what they have done in the past. They have seen when they called Prime Minister Modi “maut ka saudagar”, “neech” and “bichoo”. And such other names they have given. Modiji never responded back. It is the people of India, who have responded. And in the case of Vice President of India also, people have not taken it well. They are going to respond back, especially the Jat community and the farmer community,” Mr. Thakur said.

Strongly the INDIA alliance, Mr. Thakur charged that it was creating North and South divide and creating the cultural divide. “And they are trying to create ill will against Sanathan dharma. Their only motive is to spread these kinds of false narratives. After the failure in elections in these three States, we have seen that the morale of the INDIA Alliance has gone down. They are not speaking in the same voice. They are speaking in different voices. At the same time, when the country wanted them to be united, during the incident [security breach] happened in the Parliament, unfortunately, the members of the Opposition party, this INDIA Alliance did not come together. If you look at the past incidents, we have seen all the political parties have come together and condemned the incident and stood by to secure the strength of the Parliament.”