In a glaring instance of political rivalries stooping to pedestrian levels, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra made fun of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calling him the “eighth wonder of the world” for reportedly eating langar during the Punjab election campaign with his face mask on.
After the BJP’s social media team and leaders made the half-baked video of Gandhi viral at the langar (community lunch in Punjab) sitting with his mask on and an empty plate, he himself had to tweet his video removing his mask and eating from his food plate. Several Congress leaders also rushed to prove the BJP’s crude joke wrong.
Not only the BJP leaders, but even news agency Asia News International (ANI) also stopped the video just before Rahul Gandhi removed his mask and started eating.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu ate ‘langar’ at Golden Temple in Amritsar ahead of state elections. In the tweet that Patra retweeted, Gandhi was then wearing a mask.
Patra tweeted, “Langar with the mask on? Only the eighth wonder of the world can do this.” Here is Patra’s tweet with the video:
What he and the Punjab unit of the BJP glossed over, given that they had achieved their goal of publicly mocking Rahul, was that Gandhi obviously removed the mask and ate.
With Patra playing the proverbial Pied Piper, Delhi BJP general secretary Kuldeep Singh Chahal, BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal and many others widely shared the video.
Even certain media persons were seen mocking Gandhi.
Incensed by this petty joke at him, Rahul Gandhi finally took to his own Twitter handle and posted a video where he could be seen removing his mask before consuming the food from the ‘langar’. This is the video:
Subsequently, Congress leaders went into overdrive and uploaded the video as evidence that the BJP had spread false information about Rahul eating with his mask on.
This is not the first time. Not long ago, on January 26, BJP Haryana IT cell head Arun Yadav had posted a picture of Rahul Gandhi with a plate of food and wearing a mask.
He had posted the picture with the caption, “The first man to eat food with his mask on.” In this case too, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and the J&K Pradesh Congress Seva Dal had tweeted pictures from the event showing Gandhi eating food with textile weavers in Tamil Nadu.
