“Friends, I am totally disappointed with PM Narendra Modi,” BJP's former spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said on Saturday, because “he is unable to be a proper dictator”.
Apparently deploying sarcasm to make a point that Modi is not dictatorial but actually forgiving, Shehzad Poonawalla further said in an Instagram video, “It's been 12 years and he is a failure. He doesn't know how to be a dictator properly. Instead of being a dictator, he released a video last night and, to the kids who have abused him, constitutional authorities, his mother, he says these are just ‘mischievous’ kids and forgives them.”
He was referring to the PM's video of July 31 night in which he said he was “forgiving” those who had used profanities against him in the recent GenZ-heavy protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party that had also pushed Dharmendra Pradhan to resign as education minister.
Swipe at Rahul, Nehru-Gandhi family
Poonawalla, who has professed support for Modi even as he has reportedly left the BJP, contrasted Modi's “forgiving” behaviour with that of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
{{/usCountry}}Poonawalla, who has professed support for Modi even as he has reportedly left the BJP, contrasted Modi's “forgiving” behaviour with that of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
{{/usCountry}}“Rahul Gandhi is a descendant of Indira Gandhi, of (Jawaharlal) Nehru. Learn from him what's real dictatorship, what's real Emergency,” Poonawalla said, referring to the Congress leader's grandmother and her father, both ex-PMs, and to the 1975-77 Emergency imposed by Indira as PM. “Look at their history!”
Among past instances he cited, he also mentioned the Anna Hazare movement of 2011-12. He also cited recent cases filed in Congress-ruled Kerala and Telangana over Instagram posts and student protests.
“These Left liberals, all their hopes, you have ruined them,” Poonawalla, who has been with the Congress in the past, further said.
He again addressed PM Modi and concluded the video, “You are unable to be a dictator. You have failed.”
Speaking of Emergency
Poonawalla's remarks extend a running exchange over the Emergency as, during a heated Rajya Sabha debate on July 29, Union minister JP Nadda defended police action against student protesters on July 20 and later, telling the House that he had been arrested from his classroom multiple times during the Emergency imposed under Congress rule. He called such arrests “a very normal situation” for any student activist.
Also read | Nadda defends police action against protesters, cites Emergency era; CJP asks a question
Nadda's comments came in response to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's demand for action over the lathi-charge and tear-gas use on the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march to Parliament.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke seized on the remark almost immediately, reposting Nadda's “during the emergency” line on X. CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka also wrote, “You mean to say that the country hasn't progressed one bit in the last 50 years?”