Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s recent joke on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s purported expansion plans in Nepal and Sri Lanka has drawn the ire of Nepal Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali, who on Tuesday, 16 February, said that Kathmandu has conveyed a ‘formal complaint’ in the matter.
Responding to a Twitter user who had shared a news report on The Tripura Chief Minister’s controversial remark, Gyawali said, “Noted. Formal objection has been already conveyed.”
According to Kathmandu Post, the matter has already been raked up by Nilamber Acharya, Nepal’s Ambassador to India, who had reportedly called the Joint Secretary in charge of Nepal and Bhutan at the Ministry of External Affairs and expressed his reservations about the Tripura Chief Minister’s statement.
What Exactly Did CM Deb Say?
According to The Indian Express, Chief Minister Deb had made the comments in jest, while addressing a party event in state capital Agartala on Sunday, 14 February.
Recalling a discussion with Home Minister Amit Shah, the then BJP National President, Deb said that Shah had joked about expanding the party in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
“We were talking at state guest house in Agartala, when Ajay Jamwal said that most of the states have BJP in power. Amit Shah replied that Nepal and Sri Lanka are left. We need to win there as well.”Deb, as quoted by The Indian Express
At that meeting, the Tripura Chief Minister also said that the Congress and the left would no longer be powerful in Kerala as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah ‘have already reached there’.
He also said that, the BJP will form the government in Tamil Nadu, while adding that, “There will be no government other than BJP.”
(With inputs from The Indian Express & Kathmandu Post)
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