Yoga guru Ramdev with BJP president Amit Shah and Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani in Ahmedabad. (Photo by Javed Raja)
Slamming Congress leaders for mocking Yoga Day celebrations across the country, the BJP Wednesday said it amounted to “snubbing India’s ancient cultural heritage” and showed the “ideological bankruptcy” of the Congress which it said was “allergic to anything and everything Indian”.
Underlining that “Prime Minister Modi’s efforts at soft power diplomacy are getting fruits,” a senior BJP leader said: “Congress’s behaviour on Yoga Day shows it is allergic to anything and everything Indian and 125 crore Indians are allergic to exactly such behaviour. The Congress’s mocking and rejection of Yoga Day would be similarly met by their rejection and mocking at poll booths.”
Through the day, tweets mocking Yoga Day celebrations went out from the official Twitter handle of the Congress, its leaders and workers, who sought to rake up issue of unrest among farmers. The Congress handle tweeted an inverted International Yoga Day and a hashtag #BJP_KisanMuktasan to take a swipe at the Modi government which led nationwide participation on Yoga Day. Targeting the Prime Minister, it said he had “abandoned his duty towards farmers #BJP_KisanMuktasan”.
Former Union Minister and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor tweeted the inverted International Yoga Day and mocked the BJP for “practising Shirshasana (in Hindi) for 3yrs by standing on its head its opposition to Aadhar, FDI, GST, & other UPA ideas”. “Yes SHAVASAN,” Congress leader Digvijaya Singh posted, responding to Congress activist Shehzad Poonawalla’s tweet that read “Wonder if there is any Asan to help farmers get rid of debts & increase MSP by 50%? Clearly Modi’s Ashwa-Asan means little #YogaDay2017.”
Students in Srinagar celebrating World Yoga Day. (Photo by Shuaib Masoodi)
BJP spokesperson Anil Baluni said: “This shows the ideological bankruptcy of the Congress. They can can go to any extent in the name of their opposition to the BJP. They should remember that yoga is an ancient cultural heritage of the country and citizens of the country are taking note of this deplorable behaviour of the Congress.”
“Yoga may be thousands of years old, but its importance and relevance has never been greater, than now. As our Prime Minister says, yoga ensures health assurances at zero premium. People from across the world are realizing its importance and adopting it like never before. Yoga has now become India’s most exported product ever,” a BJP leader said, underlining that the Modi government gave yoga a new impetus. “Its efforts to get the International Day of Yoga adopted by the UN deserves wide applause… On Yoga Day, one could see it actively being celebrated from mandals at local level to missions in foreign countries. But just because Narendra Modi is ensuring that India’s proud heritage, yoga, is getting its due, does it mean that his detractors mock yoga?”
“The kind of behaviour forces one to ask the question: How is it that Congress party can ignore and mock the country’s rich cultural heritage? While we have heads of various countries participate in Yoga Day events, the Congress party vice-president chose to ignore Yoga Day event amidst his Vacation-asana. The party, except for a couple of exceptions, gave a miss to Yoga day events. It seemed as if Congress party was registering a protest against the celebration of anything Indian,” the BJP leader said. “The Congress was also trying its best to provoke farmers by using #BJP_KisanMuktasana as if doing Yoga is harmful to interests of farmers. Their concern for the farmers is a bit too rich, especially when Rahul Gandhi is busy vacationing abroad,” the leader said.
