HYDERABAD: A day after Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan’s direct salvos at him, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday chose to hit back at the film star in an indirect manner, saying that some are taking to Twitter “for just passing time”.
Without mentioning the name of Pawan Kalyan, the BJP veteran made a mockery of the tweets being posted by the Jana Sena boss, every day, on current developments.
“PM Modi has become No 1 in the world even on Twitter as he is witnessing enormous following on the social networking site. The entire country is witnessing Mission Modi now. PM’s popularity is growing with each passing day and his graph is going upwards. But, there are some people (Pawan), who don’t have any work but are taking to Twitter,” the silver-tongued politician took potshots at the Jana Sena chief.
Venkaiah, further hurled fireworks at the hero, saying, “It is of no use posting messages continuously on Twitter, when nobody follows you on social networking site. See...lakhs of netizens are following PM and his messages on Twitter. Now, PM Modi has surpassed US former president Barack Obama to emerge as No 1 leader on Twitter in the entire world.”
He took strong exception to Pawan’s allegation that the Centre was discriminating against the South Indians.
“It's inappropriate for anybody to make such baseless allegations. BJP treats the whole country as one. Where is the question of South or North here? It's not good for anybody to try to whip up regional sentiments among people,” the BJP veteran said.
He then asked Pawan, without referring to his name, to speak on any issue, only after knowing all facts about it. “Modi government has nothing to do with Jallikattu. The sport was banned during the UPA regime, earlier. Then, how can anybody point fingers at the present regime?” he attacked the actor.
In fact, a day ago, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan severely criticised Venkaiah Naidu for not taking any initiative to extract ‘special category status’ to AP.