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At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party has been facing flak for its ministers making eyebrow-raising statements, Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the bandwagon with his ‘PB Badal is India’s Mandela’ remark.
At a function to commemorate the 113th birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan in the Capital on Sunday, the PM said it was unfortunate that very few people in the country were aware of the fact that in free India, Badal had been jailed for around two decades solely for political reasons.
He added that this ‘great personality’ had suffered just for opposing those in power.
Modi went on to describe Badal as the ‘Nelson Mandela of free India’. “Badal sahab is sitting here... he is the Nelson Mandela of India. The only crime of people like Badal sahab is that they had political views different from those in power,” he said.
Soon after the statement, social media was abuzz with posts ridiculing the PM’s comment. The hashtag # #YoBadalSoMandela also began to trend on Twitter.
Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh took to Twitter to take a dig at Modi. “Who says our PM has no sense of humour. Let’s hope, like Mandela, Bharat Ratna/Nobel Prize next for Badal,” he tweeted.
One user on Twitter wrote, “With this statement Sri Narendra Modi ji proved that there is no difference between him and Rahul Gandhi.. #YoBadalSoMandela @PMOIndia.”
“With so many election rallies, looks like Modi has run out of logical/sensible arguments to convince voters!” another one tweeted.
Another tweeted, “SoniaGandhi : #YoBadalSoMandela then my son is Albert Einstein.”
@actIndians, a Twitter user, wrote, “Modi is so fun - he is compensating acche din with acche laughter #YoBadalSoMandela.”
@ankitlal wrote, “If #YoBadalSoMandela then Anu Malik composes original songs.”
The Congress also joined Twitterati to slam Modi with Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha writing, “Modiji just proved why he is our own Donald Trump.”