Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday, 25 December, took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for reportedly ignoring a BJP worker's question on the middle class' struggle with the taxation policy, saying forget a press meet, he cannot even hold a poll booth workers conference.
Gandhi was apparently referring to an incident that took place last week during Modi's interaction with "booth workers" from northern districts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
After facing embarrassment on a question about ‘tax burden on middle-class people’ from a party worker in Puducherry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office decided to take precautions on the selection of both the candidate and the questions for the interaction programme – ‘My booth is a strong booth’, reported The Times of India.
The party workers, interested to interact with the prime minister, had been asked to shoot a video and send it 48 hours ahead of the event on Sunday, 23 December, reported TOI quoting sources. “We selected the best questions from those shortlisted and informed the concerned persons,” according to the source quoted by TOI.
WHAT HAPPENED?
On 19 December, PM Modi interacted via a video conference with party workers from Puducherry, Vellore, Kanchipuram, Viluppuram and South Chennai. However, a part of the interaction quickly turned embarrassing for the Prime Minister when he was unable to answer a question posed by his party member.
A man, who introduced himself as Nirmal Kumar Jain rose from the crowd and said partly in Hindi, “Honourable Prime Minister... I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to you. My question is the work that you are doing to change the country is undoubtedly a good step but the middle sections of people are of the opinion that your government is only busy collecting tax in all manner and in all ways. They did not get the relaxation they were hoping for in IT sector, loan processing procedure and bank transaction fees and penalty. It is my request that you take care of the middle class, which is the root of your party, like the way you take care while collecting tax from them. Thank you, sir.”
Instead of giving a specific response to the question about the struggles of the middle class, the prime minister, replied, “Thank you, Nirmal ji. You are a trader, so it’s normal that you will talk business. I favour taking care of common people and the common people will be taken care of, I assure you.”
In an attempt to break the awkward tension that had filled the room, PM Modi said, “Chaliye Puducherry ko Vanakkam”, even as they moved to the next party member.
The non-response from the Prime Minister, batting it off with a “Hello to Puducherry,” has social media users in splits with some hilarious posts:
(With inputs from The News Minute, PTI)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)