Drawing parallels with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's ‘chi-chi' jibe, Union finance minster Nirmala Sitharaman ciriticised the Congress for the 1983 Nellie massacre. In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Rajya Sabha speech, Indira Gandhi's reference found its place in Sitharaman's speech in Lok Sabha on Friday as well. She was criticising the Congress and the former Prime Minister for the bloodbath in Assam ahead of 1983 assembly elections.
“Allocations were also made in large numbers in the budget at that time but massacre in Assam's Nellie still happened against a particular community. How did this happen? Would they (Congress) answer questions on that?” Sitharaman asked along with making a reference to 1984 Sikh riots.
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Sitharaman was “taking help from the history" while responding to questions raised by the Opposition on the current budget regarding uneven allocations.
“Nellie chi, chi, chi…What happened in Nellie, that should be condemned with chi, chi, chi just like Mamata Banerjee's poem,” she said.
However, Mamata's famous ‘chi-chi’ remark was, on the contrary, made against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. She was raising slogans against the act in a public rally.
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{{/usCountry}}Sitharaman went further back to mention the 1966 anti-cow slaughter agitation. To reiterate the ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas, sabka prayas’ narrative in the current budget, the Finance Minister took a dig at the Congress government's role during the 1966 agitation against cow slaughter that led to the death of eight sadhus on the Parliament street.
“It was the Congress in 1966 that killed the demonstrators who were protesting against cow slaughtering outside the Parliament,” she added.