Nirmala Sitharaman hits back at TMC MP Mahua Moitra for latter's Pappu-Maachis remarks

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 14

A day after Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi obliquely with her “who is Pappu now?” comment in Lok Sabha while speaking on the economicindicators, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit back at her on Wednesday saying, “You can find Pappu in West Bengal. It is a state that sits on welfare schemesrather than allowing benefits to pass to the people.”

Facing off with Moitra over her “the issue is not fire, the issue is who gave the madman a matchstick” comment made in the lower house yesterday, the FM said, “In a democracy, it is the people who hand over the matchstick to whoever they want. The question to be asked therefore is not who gave themaachisto whom, but how thatmaachiswas used by whom. In Gujarat, where the BJP won a historic mandate on December 8, the government has taken oath peacefully but in Bengal when the TMC won, there was loot and arson all around,” the FM said replying to the debate on supplementary grants today.

Amid loud thumping of desks by BJP MPs, Nirmala Sitharaman also said, “When we got themaachiswe have the country Ujjwala, Swachh Bharat, PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. When you got themaachisyou indulged in violence. Our workers’ homes were torched. A vehicle of the minister of state was attacked post elections and BJP President JP Nadda’s vehicle was attacked during campaigning.”

The FM earlier told Moitra “only if she looked in her backyard she could find many Pappus in Bengal.”

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