BJP ministers’ foot-in-mouth syndrome embarrasses CM

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 1

From the time Manohar Lal Khattar took oath as CM a year ago his party colleagues, Ministers, MPs and MLAs have been embarrassing the government on one count or the other. This has sent out a perception that the CM is not in control of his colleagues who are all working at their own tangents.

For nearly the first six months, the BJP leadership was subdued but just when the CM was beginning to get a hang of the administration, sporadic statements not only embarrassed the government but in many cases forced “inexperienced” ministers to take back their words.

While the cabinet members were still digesting the fact that Khattar, who was little known till then, had been chosen to lead the state senior BJP leader and Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma landed himself in a soup by using cuss word for late Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru.

The minister immediately came under fire from the Congress as well as other quarters. He had to clarify that he had not used abusive language nor insulted Nehru, but had merely narrated an incident in Haryanvi dialect.

Not only statements, but even actions of some party leaders have caused great embarrassment to the government. Gurgaon legislator Umesh Aggarwal has been accused of raping a woman along with a friend, Sandeep Luthra, by sedating her. They have been booked for rape, causing hurt by means of poison and criminal intimidation in January.

In April, Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar got into trouble when he called farmers who committed suicides as “cowards”. Drawing flak, he had to clarify his position but not before the government was called anti-farmer.

Again while distributing compensation cheques in Dabwali (Sirsa) - Dhankar said he felt like “dancing on seeing the quantum of compensation farmers were getting”. He again cut a sorry figure.

In May, in an interview MP Ashwini Chopra, said, “CM is surrounded by corrupt people and bureaucrats. He has no control over them which has become a hurdle to make the state corruption free.” Though, he projected the CM is an honest person, but questioned the latter’s working style.

Public Health Engineering Minister Ghanshayam Saraf too embarrassed the party by calling “foreign companies a threat to the country” at a function in Bhiwani. Health Minister Anil Vij has perhaps topped the share of such people. He expressed ignorance about the naming of Bollywood actor Pariniti Chopra as the brand ambassador for the government’s flagship “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” programme.

In fact, his tweets about the CM taking keen interest in his department and his latest campaign about cow as India’s national animal has kept the government in the firing line. His tweet on naming Baba Ramdev as the state’s brand ambassador had taken the CM by surprise.

MP Raj Kumar Saini’s utterances on reservation for Jats by allegedly diluting the OBC quota (Saini is an OBC) has often run counter to BJP’s ambivalent stand on this issue.

The CM himself embarrassed the BJP when he expressed his inability to do anything for the recession hit reality sector saying, “I am not a middleman that I will help the builders because they contributed towards the election fund.” Surprisingly, in less than a week, he released a builder friendly Licensing Policy for major towns, including Gurgaon. Again his beef comment came as a huge embarrassment for his party in the midst of Bihar elections.