Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb's latest gem: 'One of Narendra Modi's brothers is grocer, another drives auto'

Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has dragged the prime minister into the latest in his string of controversial statements. On Saturday, Deb said that one of Narendra Modi’s brothers drives an auto rickshaw, while another is a grocer, according to reports. According to The Indian Express, while Deb was in Agartala on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the Indian Army’s surgical strikes on militant launchpads across the LoC, he reportedly said in Bengali: “He (Modi) has an old mother, but she does not stay at the prime minister’s official house. He has a brother who still drives an auto.” [caption id=“attachment_5293771” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image of Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb in Agartala. Twitter/@BjpBiplab[/caption] “One brother runs a grocery shop, and another brother drives an auto. Their mother lives in a 10x12 room — tell me is there any prime minister like this in the world?” he was quoted as saying by  NDTV. Deb goes on to say that he belongs to a “poor family”, also promising that Tripura will become a “model state” in the next three years. The 48-year-old chief minister is known to make controversial, often absurd, comments that invite criticism. In August, Deb had claimed that ducks should be introduced in Tripura’s water bodies as their swimming would raise oxygen levels in the water and fish would get more oxygen to breathe. He did not stop there. He added that he also wanted to distribute 50,000 white ducklings  at a subsidised rate to fishermen to make this happen. In May, Deb was mocked for claiming that Rabindranath Tagore had rejected his Nobel prize in protest against the British government. The absurdity of his claims was up a notch a month earlier, when he had claimed that the internet was invented back in the time of the Mahabharata, drawing him tremendous ridicule on social media.