Lucknow: The BJP leaders seem to have an uncanny penchant for courting controversy through their statements. While Raghuraj Singh, chairman, Labour and Employment Board, kicked up a row by demanding to ban the burqa in the country, BJP MP from Aligarh Satish Gautam suggested a social activist to go to Pakistan if feeling stifled.
On the other, BJP’s Ballia MP Virendra Singh Mast refused that the country was passing through economic recession. He claimed that the nature of clothes people wore indicated that there was no economic crisis in the country.
He said people would have worn dhoti-kurta had the nation been reeling under recession. According to sources, while addressing a gathering to clear doubts over amended Citizenship Act, Raghuraj Singh who enjoys the status of Minister of State, said that terrorists used to wear burqas to conceal their identity and also weapon underneath in an apparent reference to anti-CAA protests underway in the Shahjamal area in Agra.
He further explained that wearing a burqa was a tradition started in Arabian countries and is not an Indian custom. He added even Sri Lanka had banned it after a series of bomb blasts ripped the country last year, leaving many dead and injuring scores of people.
This is not the first time, Singh has made a controversial statement in Aligarh earlier saying those raising slogans against PM Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath "would be buried alive". Similarly, another Aligarh leader and BJP MP Satish Gautam, who had created flutter in 2018 by demanding removal of Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait from AMU, kicked up yet another row by asking social activist Sumaiya Rana, daughter of leading Urdu poet Munawwar Rana, to "go to Pakistan" since she was feeling suffocated in India of today.
Sumaiya, while addressing a gathering of anti-CAA protesters in Aligarh on Saturday, had allegedly accused the UP cops of using "coercive measures" to crush protests against the amended citizenship law and said such measures were "very suffocating" for the people. On the other, BJP MP Virendra Singh mast, originally a farmer leader, refused to acknowledge that the country was passing through a phase of economic recession.
Mast, while addressing a gathering at an event in Ballia, claimed that world might be in the grip of recession but India would not be impacted by it as its rural and agricultural economy was strong enough. He linked his logic with the nature of attire Indians were donning. "Had there been recession, we would have come here wearing dhoti and kurta and not coats and jackets.
Had there been recession we would not have purchased clothes, pants and payjamas," Mast said. He had claimed that India’s economy had a crucial rural indicator which was strong enough. "India is a country of villages and not just metros. Banking reports say that in banks, most of the money deposited is that of villagers," he said.