By Sharanya Gopinathan
Poor Divya Spandana AKA Karnataka Congress politician, former Mandya MP and erstwhile actor Ramya. All she did was crack a joke.
When Narendra Modi turned up at the BS Yeddyurappa-led Parivartana Rally in Bangalore on Sunday, 4 February, he announced that the BJP has given “TOP” priority to farmers, explaining that “by TOP, I mean Tomato, Onion, Potato”.
It obviously inspired most citizens to scratch their heads in confusion, and Divya Spandana to enquire on Twitter whether this is what happens when someone’s on pot.
The question spawned a barrage of responses from various members of the BJP, or as Firstpost reports, has left the BJP “fuming”. BJP national IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya, exhorted Rahul Gandhi to break his silence on Spandana’s comments, and also brought up the fact that 3,500 farmers had committed suicide in Karnataka during CM Siddaramaiah’s tenure.
https://twitter.com/malviyamit/status/960164205717581824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
BJP party spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao also kind of hilariously tweeted that “most people of the country and our party members won’t even know what you are referring to (including prime minister himself) but your leader will connect with it instantly.”
Anyway, it isn’t just the BJP and Times Now that isn’t happy with Spandana saying the word pot. The Congress party in Karnataka seems to be cautiously backing away from Spandana and her comments. The Times of India reports that when asked about the controversy, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said he wasn’t aware of the tweet (as if), but that character assassination was wrong.
He revealed that he was probably aware of the tweet when he remarked with a great deal of context, “I have countered Modi’s allegations point-by-point against our government, but refrained from making any personal attack. He may be our political rival, but I will not speak disrespectfully of the PM personally. We are in a federal structure. We have accepted the Constitution. We have to run the government in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. We can’t go against it. We are not the BJP to go against the Constitution.”