My family’s blood is mixed with Chandigarh soil: Manish Tewari
Tewari pointed out that his father, Prof Vishwa Nath Tewari, was shot dead by terrorists for refusing to compromise on patriotism and nationalism; “My family’s blood is mixed with this soil literally and I am proud of it,” he asserted
Rubbishing BJP’s charges that he was a “constituency hopper”, Congress’ Chandigarh candidate Manish Tewari on Tuesday said BJP candidate Sanjay Tandon should question himself first, as he was born and brought up in Amritsar.
Tewari said his family’s blood was mixed in the soil of Chandigarh and no matter where he lived or contested elections from “we live for India, we die for India and we have done that”.
He pointed out that his father, Prof Vishwa Nath Tewari, was shot dead by terrorists for refusing to compromise on patriotism and nationalism. “My family’s blood is mixed with this soil literally and I am proud of it,” he asserted, while adding that he did not want to rake up the issue, but if this be the argument, then Tandon should question himself first, as he belonged to Amritsar.
Tewari reminded Tandon that even his late father Balramji Dass Tandon had “hopped” constituencies from Amritsar to Rajpura. “May be Sanjay Tandon either doesn’t know about it or doesn’t remember about it,” he remarked, while asking him to talk on achievements instead of making “frivolous” remarks that neither have any basis nor any substance.
Contesting his first Lok Sabha election from Chandigarh, Tewari was elected to the Ludhiana seat in 2009 and Anandpur Sahib in 2019.
Who is Anil Masih, Tewari asks Tandon in sarcastic posts
Earlier taking a dig at Tandon, Tewari questioned his association with Anil Masih, the presiding officer who defaced opposition’s votes in the January 30 mayoral poll.
Taking to social media site X, Tewari questioned, “Who is Anil Masih? @SanjayTandonBJP wherever I go in Chandigarh, people tell me he is a close associate of yours. Is it true?”
Retweeting a post by AAP Chandigarh co-incharge Dr SS Ahluwalia, Tewari also posted pictures of Tandon and Anil Masih, writing, “These pictures of you and the ‘great angel of democracy’ Anil Masih. People say you are two bodies but one soul and mind. Is it true?@SanjayTandonBJP?”
Facing perjury proceedings for making a false statement before the Supreme Court, Anil Masih had tendered an unconditional apology before the court on April 5.
The apex court had initiated criminal proceedings against Masih under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) for falsely stating that he declared the eight ballots invalid as they were defaced. He had told the court that he put ‘X’ mark on the eight “invalid” ballots so that did not get mixed up.
The court, however, had found that the ballots were not defaced till the poll results were announced.
On February 20, the top court had validated the votes in favour of AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor and declared him the mayor.
A BJP member since 2015 and general secretary of the saffron party’s minority morcha since 2021, Masih had been a regular at all party events, before he was dropped from the party’s list of office-bearers in February amid the mayoral poll fiasco.
Congress removes women’s wing president
The Congress high command on Tuesday removed Chandigarh Mahila Congress president Deepa Dubey from her post and appointed Nandita Hooda as the new chief.
Deepa, along with others, had submitted her resignation to party national president Mallikarjun Kharge, seeking removal of city Congress president HS Lucky over the latter’s alleged disrespect towards former MP Pawan Bansal on Instagram.
The orders for Deepa’s removal from the post were issued by National Mahila Congress president Anita Lamba, who is expected to be in the city on Wednesday to meet disgruntled workers.