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Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan has a comeback on Chidambaram’s ‘tukde, tukde’ jab
In a series of tweets on Thursday, Chidambaram had said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had weakened democratic institutions and eroded democracy.
Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan has attacked senior Congress leader P Chidambaram for his criticism of the government after India was placed 51st in the list of 165 nations in the Democracy Index.
In a series of tweets on Thursday, Chidambaram had said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had weakened democratic institutions and eroded democracy.
“Chidambaram recently came back from jail on charges of theft...the country knows what kind of work was done in Chidambaram’s time. People like P Chidambaram, who went to jail after ‘Chindi Chori’, will always have trouble with people who are following the rules and regulations,” Pradhan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The minister was referring to P Chidambaram’s release on bail last month after he spent 106 days in custody in the INX Media case.
The Congress leader’s lashings had come after India dropped 10 places in the Democracy Index’s global ranking to 51st place, with the survey describing the erosion of civil liberties in the country as the primary cause of the democratic regression.
The Democracy Index – prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis division of The Economist Group – provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 165 independent states and two territories.
It is based on the electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of the government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.
India’s overall score, on a scale of 0-10, fell from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 in 2019, with the survey listing India among countries where there were “regressions”.
Chidambaram said the “world is alarmed by the direction INDIA is taking” and had also warned that “every patriotic Indian should be alarmed too”.
“India has slipped 10 places in the Democracy Index. Anyone who has closely observed the events of the last two years knows that democracy has been eroded and democratic institutions have been debilitated. Those who are in power are the real ‘Tukde Tukde’ gang,” the 74-year-old leader had tweeted.
“Tukde tukde” (little pieces) gang is a Hindi term often used by right-wing parties to attack Left-backed groups and their supporters.
The leaders of the BJP have also used the term which was coined after the protests in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in February 2016. It is alleged that “tukde, tukde” was first used by people to say they would divide India into pieces.
