Hours after Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni called farmer leader Rakesh Tikait a "do kaudi ka aadmi" (worthless person), Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday, August 23, questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's inaction.
“For how long will the Prime Minister continue to save tainted ministers? For how long will you continue to encourage this language of abuse?” she said in a tweet in Hindi.
In a veiled reference to protesting farmers, Teni, whose son Ashish is in prison for allegedly running over farmers in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri, also spoke about "dogs barking and chasing his car."
This comes a day after farmers held a 'mahapanchayat' in Delhi's Jantar Mantar. Farmers had also held a 72-hour protest in Lakhimpur Kheri a few days ago to demand the resignation of Mishra from the Union Cabinet over his son's alleged criminal actions.
Taking a potshot at Mishra, Tikait said that his son being in jail for a year was "bound to make him angry."
"I might be a worthless man but we will launch a Lakhimpur Mukti Abhiyan to put an end to Teni's Goondaraj," he added in response.
'It's in the Nature of Dogs To Bark': Mishra
"Suppose I am travelling to Lucknow in a car and it's going at a good speed. Dogs bark. They bark on the roadside or chase the car. It's their nature. I will not say anything about that. We do not have this nature. Things will reveal themselves and I will respond to everyone. I am very confident because of your support," Mishra is heard saying in the video.
"No one in the world will be able to disappoint you. No matter how many Rakesh Tikaits come – I know him very well, 'do kaudi ka aadmi hai', he fought two elections and lost his deposit (lost badly). If such a person protests, I do not respond. If his politics survives because of this, let it. I have never done anything wrong in my life," he further said.
The minister's son was imprisoned for four months before being granted bail by the Allahabad High Court. However, the Supreme Court had overturned the high court's decision and ordered his incarceration once again in April this year.
Mishra has so far been able to survive calls for his resignation.
In the video, the minister further says, "The media, the so-called farmers, the non-nationalistic political parties or terrorists sitting in Canada or Pakistan, I would never have imagined you would make me popular with them too. This is your strength. Because of you, these people cannot figure out how to defeat me. The elephant keeps moving on its path, dogs keep barking."
Eight people, including four farmers, were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri amid the violence that had erupted when farmers protested against UP Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya's visit to the area in October 2021.
Ashish Mishra was reportedly in one of the three SUV's which had run over several farmers amid the protests, killing at least four of them and a journalist as well.
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