NEW DELHI:
BJP leader Ravi Kishan
on Tuesday called Congress leader
Shashi Tharoor
“angrez aadmi” for suggesting that the BJP would struggle to exceed 300 seats in the
Lok Sabha elections
.
Responding to Tharoor’s allegations, BJP MP from Gorakhpur said, “Shashi Tharoor is ‘angrez aadmi’. We go to Manali and Shimla on vacations; they come to India during elections.
They neither know the country nor its villages. They don’t know this sweat.”
Kishan said that Tharoor only comes to India during elections and does not understand the country or its villages. He also emphasised the significance of the Bhojpuri language, attributing his popularity to it. “I have always spoken Bhojpuri. My speeches have been in Bhojpuri. This is our mother tongue, our identity. Bhojpuri made me a superstar. We fought for Bhojpuri, and a bill was brought in for the inclusion of the language in the 8th schedule (of the Constitution). The youth will not leave their identity,” Kishan said.
Ravi Kishan is seeking a second term from Gorakhpur. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Kishan defeated Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Rambhual Nishad by a margin of 301,664 votes.
Uttar Pradesh is voting in all seven phases of the Lok Sabha polls, with the final phase scheduled for June 1. The Congress is contesting the polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party, having a seat-sharing arrangement in which Congress is contesting 17 seats and the Samajwadi Party 63 seats in the state.
(With agency inputs)