NEW DELHI: Disregarding the furore over one of its leaders referencing "POT" in one of her tweets, the Karnataka
Congress is forging ahead with its plan to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi questions using acronyms.
The party is, of course, using the PM's recent comments from his Karnataka visit as a take-off point. The PM on Sunday said in an address in the state that farmers are his "TOP" priority, and explained that by "TOP", he meant "tomato, onion and potato".
Ergo, the Karnataka Congress today tweeted asking him questions on unemployment, using similar acronyms and giving new expansions to existing ones.
"Mr. Modi, isn't your TOP priority to create Jobs? But your government is NDA - Not Doing Anything!", tweeted the Congress party's Karnataka unit.
NDA is, of course, a reference to the government at the Centre. It actually stands for 'National Democratic Alliance' and is a coalition of parties headed by the
BJP.
About Modi's "TOP" comment, the Karnataka Congress got into a smidgen of trouble yesterday and on Sunday.
What happened was that the Congress social media head and Karnataka unit member
Divya Spandana asked referring to Modi's comment, "Is this what happens when you're on POT?"
The BJP wasn't happy with her comment, assuming she was referring to a hallucinogenic plant.
"Most people of the country and our party members won't even know what you are referring to (including PM himself) but your Leader will connect with it instantly. While you have insulted people of India with your atrocious comment, your leader will be proud of you!!", said BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao.
The BJP's Amit Malviya, its IT maven, also tweeted about Spandana's comment. He wondered whether Congress president Rahul Gandhi would suspend her like he did senior leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. The Congress suspended Aiyar from the party for using the word "neech" in a comment aimed at
PM Modi during the Gujarat Assembly polls.
Spandana then wondered - a mite disingenuously - what all the fuss was about, saying "POT" merely meant "Potato, Onion, Tomato".
"Come on! Be a sport- And hey, POT = Potato ?? Onion Tomato ?? what were you thinking? ??," she tweeted.
The BJP was not mollified. Its IT wing head Malviya said more than 3,500 farmers have committed suicide in Karnataka, the highest for any state in India, but "speaking for them is being on 'POT'... Congress keeps it classy, again".
