Congress in its bid to win the 2019 elections at any cost has often crossed the invisible line that separates criticism of a politician from the disrespect of a prime minister. Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera recently equated PM Modi with terrorist Masood Azhar. But that’s not all, the party went ahead and released a comical video wherein PM Modi is shown begging before the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A video posted by the Congress party shows a nervous PM Modi shakily greeting Xi Jinping and Xi repeatedly giving him the cold shoulder. In the video PM Modi offers to build a grand statue of Xi in India (a dig at the statue of unity), to which Xi responds “Good try, but still not giving Doklam”. PM Modi then goes on to beg Xi to reconsider his stance on Masood Azhar and Xi tells him to stop embarrassing himself.
Watch video
An accurate representation of Modi's relationship with President Xi of China. #HugplomacyYaadRakhna pic.twitter.com/5YgqxuEvaS
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 14, 2019
The video left not just the core BJP fans infuriated but the entire country at large. The disrespect of the Prime Minister is tantamount to the disrespect of the nation. But the Congress party seemed unperturbed. Actor R Madhavan registered his protest through a tweet. He said “This is in such bad taste. What ever the political rivalry -Shri Modi Ji is the Prime Minister of this country and you are demeaning this nation in front of China in this video with such crass attempt at humor. NOT expected from this Twitter handle ??.@narendramodi @RahulGandhi”.
This is in such bad taste.What ever the political rivalry -Shri Modi Ji is the Prime Minister of this country and you are demeaning this nation in front of China in this video with such crass attempt at humor.NOT expected from this Twitter handle 🙏🙏.@narendramodi @RahulGandhi https://t.co/KJiPyZI7lt
— Ranganathan Madhavan (@ActorMadhavan) March 15, 2019
The tweet went viral. At the time of writing this piece, the tweet had been retweeted by over 15000 people on the micro-blogging site. Most people seemed to agree with R Madhavan.
This is the only reason why they were restricted to "44" last LS Election
it's amongst their recent developed habbits, whr they only try to Impress their HARDCORE voters by making Memes & Jokes, and end up being a joke themselves#LokSabhaElections2019 #RahulGandhi #NarendraModi— Rohit Jaiswal (@rohitjswl01) March 15, 2019
https://twitter.com/BEYONDABOV/status/1106474798484471808
https://twitter.com/ads7506/status/1106474070609031168
But Madhavan’s pointed response to Congress’ crass attempt at humor didn’t go down too well with the Congress trolls. Sanjukta Basu, infamous for crass tweets that involves a lot of swearing, name calling and toilet humor decided to chastise R Madhavan for his ‘chutzpah’. She tweeted “Lol. Madhavan, relax, this is politics. Congress party will defeat fascism with love and laughter, instead of the fascist party whose most successful strategy is a riot or war, and count seats against dead bodies. But Modi bhakt from Bollywood is understandable ?”
A classic case of ad-hominem where branding the dissenter as the fanboy of someone or something is more important than genuine discussion of the topic at hand. But Madhavan was in no mood to let the troll go unpunished. His response to Sanjukta’s juvenile attempt at ‘getting back’ was both classy and powerful. Madhavan tweeted – “Due respects Mam. Apart from your shallow dig at my industry, I really wish you had the wisdom to understand the gist of my objection.I would have done the same,no matter who the PM & from which party. Strangely the Lofty claims on your profile has no connect with your demure.”
Due respects Mam. Apart from your shallow dig at my industry, I really wish you had the wisdom to understand the gist of my objection.I would have done the same,no matter who the PM & from which party.Strangely the Lofty claims on your profile has no connect with your demure. https://t.co/r1BG9Yyq9T
— Ranganathan Madhavan (@ActorMadhavan) March 16, 2019
Needless to say, Madhavan’s powerful response to Congress troll Sanjukta Basu went viral again. R Madhavan is a man of very few words and an actor par excellence and he is generally liked by everyone regardless of their political affiliations and individual biases. The way he flattened the troll is commendable and a testimonial to the fact that no matter what, the citizen of the country is in no mood to tolerate the disrespect of the country’s prime minister.