Who says our Prime Minister does not have a sense of humour?
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal during the “Loktantra Prahari Abhinandan” on occasion of the 113th birth anniversary celebration of the socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, in New Delhi on Sunday.
Accusing Badal of “destroying the entire social and economic fabric of Punjab”, he said: “There can be no greater insult to Mandela than comparing someone like Badal with him”. “Let’s hope, like Mandela, Bharat Ratna/Nobel Prize next for Badal”, he tweeted.
The chief of Punjab Congress, Pratap Singh Bajwa, meanwhile, sought to charge the Badal administration with being inefficient, saying, “Under Badal government farmers are dying, 70 per cent youth of Punjab is hooked to drugs and PM Modi calls Mr Badal India’s Nelson Mandela”.
Former Punjab deputy chief minister and Congress leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal also criticised the PM for comparing Badal to Mandela, saying that it was an insult to the South African leader.
“This didn’t go down well with the twitterati and soon hashtag “#YoBadalSoMandela” started trending.
The AAP too joined the chorus. “Very few people know that Badal Saheb is Nelson Mandela of India, who has spent almost two decades in jail only because of political differences”.
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When Badal rose to speak, he said Congress rule had done the country no good. “In its meeting held at Amritsar, SAD made a decision to launch a morcha against this draconian step after which the top leadership of Akali Dal, including me, courted arrest”, he said.
