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What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Congress leader Srinivas BV’s distasteful remarks showed that the party is yet to come to terms with the fact that Irani broke the shackles of the Gandhi family’s hold on Amethi
Battling for survival and struggling to stay relevant in the changing political sphere of the country, as they try to stem their rot, the Congress seems to have been sucked into frustration and is now resorting to personal attacks on leaders who have singed them the most.
As Congress held a protest rally in the hope of taking mileage out of Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha, following his conviction by a Surat court, Congress youth leader Srinivas BV attacked Union minister Smriti Irani with distasteful comments on Monday, March 27.
In his bid to corner the central government on inflation, Srinivas ended up mocking Irani, saying that before 2014, she used to complain about rising inflation.
Trying to dramatize his speech, Srinivas used a reference to the famous song from the Bollywood movie Peepli Live but ended up being sexist with his reference. “Mehengai daayan ko darling bana ke bedroom mein bitha diya hai (You made inflation your darling and kept her in your bedroom),” Srinivas said in the rally.
Srinivas’ choice to attack Irani holds significance as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke the stranglehold of the Gandhi family on Amethi, their bastion. It was Irani who beat Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, an unthinkable act for the longest time, in 2019.
The win also holds significance as Irani had lost the 2014 elections against Rahul Gandhi. However, the loss seemed to have made her more determined as she worked at the grassroots level for five years before turning the tables on the Gandhi family – and Congress as a whole.
This was not the first time that Congress had targeted Irani. In 2015, Assam Congress leader Nilamani Sen Deka referred to Irani as the second wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In 2020, Congress leader Shashank Bhargava made sexist comments about the Union leader. “In the past, Smriti Irani would roam around with a lot of bangles in her hand. She is close to the Prime Minister and can give him her bangles and a lot of other things,” Bhargava said.
“I will request that she gift the Prime Minister her bangles and whatever else he wants and ask him to roll back the price hike,” he had said.
In December last year, another Congress leader, Ajay Rai, said that the Amethi MP comes to her constituency only to show ‘latke and jhatke.’
