New Delhi: After the controversy and jibes over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s suit monogrammed with his name during a meeting with former US President Barack Obama, it’s a payback time for the BJP.
Late on Tuesday night, the BJP took pot-shots at the Congress president for wearing a jacket that alleged costs Rs 63,000.
Mr Gandhi was in Shillong, Meghalaya, at a rock concert organised by his party to kick off the party’s campaign for the Assembly elections on February 27.
Sharing the image of Mr Gandhi in his jacket, the BJP’s Meghalaya unit tweeted: “So @OfficeOfRG, soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with ‘black’ money fleeced from Meghalayan state exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! (sic)”
The party’s state unit also tweeted an image of a Burberry jacket, similar to the one that Mr Gandhi wore, having a price tag of $995 (little over '63,000). Mr Gandhi reportedly cleared the air, saying he had borrowed the jacket.
Unfazed, the Congress president fired fresh “suit-boot ki sarkar” salvos at the PM from Shillong, saying Mr Modi is always found in the company of people attired in suits and not poor people.
BJP has no right to question: Renuka
Taking potshots at Modi’s “expensive” suit, “You will not see him (Modi) hug a poor person, talk to a poor person or even engage with a poor person. You will see him with others. There is a particular distance he maintains with the poor people which he does not with Mr Obama or others The fact of the matter is that he (Modi) is still a suit-boot person,” Mr Gandhi said.
Senior Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury, however, reacted sharply to BJP’s tweets, and said that the BJP was leading a “suit-boot ki sarkar” at the Centre and has no moral authority to question Mr Gandhi. She said the BJP was “frustrated” due to Mr Gandhi’s “rising popularity”. Attacking the Prime Minister, Ms Chowdhury said, “Those who wove (their) own name on suit, do they have any moral authority to question Rahul Gandhi’s jacket? How do they know rate of the jacket? I will show the jacket can be bought at '700. What will they say then?”
In another tweet, the BJP alleged the Congress government in Meghalaya was mired in corruption and instead of attending a musical event, Mr Gandhi should have given a report card of the state government.
