Headlines
Giriraj remarks: Sonia says narrow mindset, BJP for ending row
Bhopal/New Delhi/Bengaluru, April 2
Congress
president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday dismissed union minister Giriraj
Singh's "racist" remarks as stemming from a "narrow mindset" even as
party members staged protests while the BJP sought the matter to be
closed as he had expressed regrets.
Gandhi, who visited Madhya
Pradesh to meet farmers whose crops have been damaged in the recent
untimely rains, expressed ignorance about the remarks.
"What did
he say," she asked reporters in a brief interaction during her visit,
and after having been told, conveyed her disdain.
"It is not appropriate to respond to or comment on people with such narrow mindset. This is my answer," Gandhi said.
Singh,
who is union minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises,
had told reporters in Patna on Tuesday that he wondered if former prime
minister Rajiv Gandhi had married a non-white Nigerian woman, would the
Congress still have accepted her as its president.
Singh, who
has caused embarrassment to Bharatiya Janata Party earlier also, had to
express regret over his remarks with the party leadership conveying its
displeasure to him.
Sources said party president Amit Shah had spoken to Singh on Wednesday and pulled him up over the comments.
Congress
leaders have strongly denounced Singh's remarks and demanded that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi should dismiss him and apologise to the nation.
Former union Minister Kapil Sibal accused Modi of being silent on Singh's controversial remarks.
He
said that it was part of BJP's strategy that "intemperate comments"
were made, then someone from the party conveys disapproval but Modi
remains silent.
He also took a dig at BJP over the party's good governance pitch.
"People of the country will decide if there will be Giriraj or Ramraj," he said.
Congress
spokesperson Sanjay Jha accused the BJP of being "casual and
indifferent" on the issue and said Singh was a "repeat offender".
"Despite
his previous observation on the campaign trail in 2014 where he asked
all non-Narendra Modi supporters to leave India and go to Pakistan, he
was rewarded by a post in the cabinet.
"If Modi remains silent
this time as well, he is providing ammunition to many others in the
party who are prone to making pedestrian remarks against Congress
leaders," Jha told IANS.
Congress workers protested in New Delhi
against Singh's remark. Holding posters and shouting slogans against
Singh, they demanded that Modi should act against the minister.
In
Bengaluru, where the BJP's three-day national executive committee
meeting is underway, hundreds of cadres and supporters of the ruling
Congress protested on Thursday, demanding that the minister be sacked.
The
Congress cadres took out a rally from their party office, shouting
slogans against Giriraj Singh, garlanding his portrait with footwear and
burning his effigies.
In Bihar, a Congress leader on Thursday filed a court case against Giriraj Singh.
"I
have filed a case in the chief judicial magistrate's court against
Giriraj Singh for his racist remark against Sonia Gandhi and for
insulting and hurting the sentiments of women," said Sanjay Kumar Singh,
a Congress leader from Muzaffarpur district.
BJP leaders, however, said the issue should be treated as closed after the minister expressed his regret.
Party general secretary Ram Madhav said the matter had "ended" with Singh's clarification about the controversial comment.
BJP spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said in Bengaluru that the matter should be treated as "closed".
"The minister has expressed regrets over his remarks and the matter should now be closed."
Hussain
also referred to remarks made by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam in 2012
about party leader Smriti Irani, who is now the human resource
development minister but said the two cannot be compared.
"It is
not right to compare the two issues. That is Congress culture... the
kind of comments they give. Our party has expressed regret," Hussain
said.
Nirupam had told Irani: "Till yesterday you were dancing on television and today you have become a politician."
Asked by a TV news channel about his comments, Nirupam said the matter was before the court.