In a significant development poised to inject further chaos into the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, a controversial social media post by a senior Congress leader depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi selling tea has triggered a major political storm.
Late on Monday night, Congress National Coordinator Ragini Nayak posted an AI-generated video on X that showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking with a tea kettle and glasses at what appeared to be an international summit.
It is well known that Prime Minister Modi has often spoken about his childhood, when his father ran a tea stall at Vadnagar railway station in Gujarat and he assisted him. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in which Narendra Modi led the BJP to a landslide victory, senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar had infamously mocked Modi’s modest origins by saying he could never become Prime Minister and could, at best, sell tea. A decade later, with Narendra Modi now serving his third consecutive term as Prime Minister, another Congress leader has revived the “chaiwala” jibe.
The post by Ragini Nayak has provoked a fierce backlash from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Senior BJP leader and national spokesperson CR Kesavan strongly condemned the post, saying, “This disgusting tweet by the Congress is a grievous insult to the 140 crore hard-working meritorious Indians, and it is a direct attack by the Congress on the OBC community.”
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He added, “Nayak’s post exposes the depraved mindset of the Congress leadership. The Congress leadership and Rahul Gandhi hate the fact that the people of India continue to bless and choose PM Narendra Modi ji who has come up through dedication and hard work as opposed to the arrogant and entitled Rahul Gandhi, who has been repeatedly rejected by the people. The Congress party is a habitual offender when it comes to abusing PM Modi and even his late mother. The people of India will teach the degenerate Congress a punitive lesson.”
Another BJP national spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla, also hit out at the Congress, stating on X: “Naamdar Congress cannot stand a Kamdar PM from the OBC community who has come from a poor background. They mocked his Chaiwala background earlier too. They abused him 150 times. They abused his mother in Bihar. People will never forgive them.”
The controversy has erupted just as the Winter Session of Parliament is getting underway, a session already expected to be stormy. While the government has lined up an ambitious legislative agenda, the Opposition, led by the Congress, is determined to corner the Centre on several issues, including the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in multiple states. With tempers flaring over the latest chaiwala remark, disruptions in both Houses appear almost inevitable in the coming days.
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