Anurag Thakur’s caste remark at Rahul Gandhi triggers uproar in Lok Sabha

Animesh Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 30
Stormy scenes were witnessed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday after BJP MP Anurag Thakur taunted Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, saying that a person whose caste was not known was talking of caste census, while referring to the Congress leader’s repeated demand for a caste census in the country.
In his response, Rahul Gandhi said though the BJP leader had abused him, he did not expect any apology as whoever raised the issue of Dalits and tribals, got abused and he would happily accept them.
Prior to this, Thakur also engaged in a war of words with Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Akhilesh Yadav on the Agnipath scheme, when the latter, while participating in a discussion on the Union Budget, said the scheme was flawed. The former Union minister’s comments against Rahul came a day after the Congress leader attacked the BJP and its leadership with his “chakravyuh” metaphor.
Today, Rahul indirectly referred to the saffron party’s symbol “lotus” and took a jibe at the traditional “halwa” ceremony before the Budget printing exercise, wondering why there were no Dalit, tribal or backward class officers at the ceremony.
Thakur, whose speech was more focused on point-to-point repartee on the Congress leader’s comments on July 29 than the Budget, also attacked Rahul saying, “They should know that the full form of LoP is Leader of Opposition, not leader of propaganda.”
Responding to the analogy of “chakravyuh”, Thakur referred to PM Narendra Modi as Abhimanyu. “You may have a Karna, but you failed to defeat Abhimanyu as dharma is with us. You may have Narayani sena, but Krishna is with us,” Thakur said.
On the halwa ceremony comment, he remarked, “Rahul ji, you spoke about halwa. Who had the halwa from the Bofors scam, from the Antriksh-Dewas scam, from the Commonwealth Games, National Herald, submarine, AgustaWestland, 2G, coal, urea and fodder scams? Rahul ji, was the halwa sweet or tasteless? Some people talk about OBCs, but for them (the Congress) OBC stands for ‘only for brother-in-law commission’.”
Thakur was involved in a heated exchange with Akhilesh Yadav, who accused the government of orchestrating supportive tweets from industrialists to promote the Agnipath scheme.
“When the Agniveer scheme was first introduced, prominent industrialists were made to tweet that there was no better plan and that they would offer jobs to Agniveers. Perhaps the government remembers this because it admits that the scheme is not right, which is why they are asking their state governments to provide quotas and jobs for returning Agniveers,” he said.
In response, Thakur defended the scheme. “The long-standing demand for ‘One Rank, One Pension’ was fulfilled by the Modi government. The Agnipath scheme guarantees 100 per cent employment,” he claimed.