Union minister Giriraj Singh, who is known for making controversial statements, has yet again put his foot in mouth, and the interesting, rather ironical part is that it is he himself who is at the receiving end of his own latest barb.
It so happened that while seeking the support of people at Nawada, his Lok Sabha constituency for NDA’s Sankalp Rally which was held on Sunday and addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh had warned that all those who would fail to attend the rally would be termed “traitors”
“The rally will prove who are the ones who stand with Hindustan and who stand with Pakistan. Those who attend the rally of Prime Minister Modi would mean they support India while those who skip it would obviously be backing Pakistan and will be treated as traitors,” the Union minister had told the local media.
But strangely, Giriraj Singh himself failed to turn up for the rally.
In his justification, he said he watched the telecast of the entire rally on TV at home. As such, he himself broke the story by turning to Twitter to announce he didn’t participate in the rally. “While returning to Patna from Nawada, I fell sick and failed to attend the rally addressed by the Prime Minister,” he tweeted.
2 दिन पहले नवादा से पटना आने के क्रम में अस्वस्थ हो गया,इस कारण मा० @narendramodi जी के संकल्प रैली में शामिल न हो सका।
विशाल रैली और प्रधानमंत्री जी के सम्बोधन को TV पर देखा।
देश के विकास के लिए और दुश्मनों के मंसूबो को तोड़ने के लिए जनता पुनः नमो को प्रधानमंत्री बनाएगी।— Shandilya Giriraj Singh (@girirajsinghbjp) March 3, 2019
This was an opportunity that the opposition grabbed with both hands as it launched a frontal attack on the minister over his absence. “He himself had said those not attending the Modi rally will be treated as ‘traitors’. By this standard, the BJP minister has proved himself a traitor. He should clarify now when he is quitting India,” asked Pappu Yadav of Jan Adhikar Party on Monday.
Senior RJD leader Vijay Prakash said, “Giriraj Singh has proved that by his own logic, he is anti-national. In any case, the rally was rejected by the patriotic public of Bihar.”
Fazal Imam Malik, national spokesperson of RLSP, issued a statement demanding a public apology from Singh and his expulsion from the BJP with the sarcastic remark that he (Giriraj Singh) should now tell us who must be sent to Pakistan.
Though Singh claimed to have skipped the rally on “health grounds”, a story doing the rounds in the BJP circles say the minister is angry over reports that his home LS seat could go to the LJP quota under the seat-sharing arrangement. Right now, Singh represents Nawada in the LS but BJP’s ally LJP has staked claim over this seat after JDU’s willingness to contest Munger seat which is held by the LJP.
“In the last LS polls, the LJP had won six out of seven it was given under the seat-sharing arrangement. This time, we have been given six but the JDU is now eager to contest from our sitting Munger seat. If that happens, we obviously will stake claim over Nawada seat,” state LJP president Pashupati Kumar Paras told the media. According to party insiders, the continuing uncertainty of losing his sitting seat to his ally has made the BJP minister jittery.