'Symbolic fast powered by chole puri': BJP leaders term Congress protest to promote communal harmony as 'drama'

Congress workers have been observing a day-long fast in all state and district headquarters to voice their concerns against the NDA government and to promote communal harmony and peace across the country. However, the fast has been marred by a slew of controversies. BJP leader Harish Khurana tweeted out an image of the Congress leaders eating in a restaurant, saying that the party was trying to make a fool out of people with the fast.

Khurana later went on to tell ANI that picture reveals the double-standards of the Congress. “On one hand, they are claiming to be observing a fast, and on the other hand they are seen having food at a restaurant. The picture is authentic. Let them deny it,” he said. Congress leader AS Lovely reacted to Khurana’s statement, saying the photograph was taken before 8 am and that the fast was “symbolic” and not an indefinite hunger strike. “This is what is wrong with these (BJP) people. Instead of properly running the country, they concentrate on what we eat,” he said.

BJP’s official Twitter account also mocked the Opposition party, saying “After moral victory, Congress has now come up with the idea of ‘symbolic fast’ powered by chole-puri.”

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra took a jibe at Congress as well, calling the party the “only danga master” of the country. “The Congress has been doing politics of appeasement of the Dalits since the times of Nehru ji. Today they are doing a drama to launch party president Rahul Gandhi. The Congress can go to any extent to launch its leader,” Patra said. “This is not a fast — this is fast-tracking of Rahul Gandhi’s political career,” Patra added. Another BJP spokesperson, Bizay Sonkar Shastri, called Gandhi’s fast a “drama” to show solidarity with the Dalits and accused him of “vitiating” the atmosphere in the country after the 20 March Supreme Court order on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. “This is not Rahul Gandhi’s love for the Dalits. After spreading violence, he is doing the drama of non-violence,” Shastri said. BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa also said that the Congress party had a “mentality of eating,” whether it was eating people’s money through scams or otherwise. “They are making a fool out of Dalits,” he added, saying that all the leaders, including Gandhi, had eaten before the “drama of a fast.”

According to News18, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar echoed the statement his other party cohorts made, saying the Congress fast is “just a political drama.” “They are responsible for over 3,000 Sikh deaths and yet they speak of Dalit atrocities,” Javadekar said. Javadekar’s comments come in the light of  Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler , listed as accused for their alleged role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, being made to stay away from the main dais of Rajghat.

Rebel Congress leader Shehzad Poonawalla also criticised the Congress for its “designer fast” questioning whether Rahul Gandhi would sack the netas seen eating ‘during fast.’ Gandhi steered clear of the controversy while addressing the media. He only mentioned the party’s fast for communal harmony, saying, “BJP follows the ideology of oppressing Dalits, tribals and minorities; we will defeat it in the 2019 general election.” With inputs from agencies