Taking a jibe at Haryana Minister Anil Vij for his controversial statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a much bigger brand than Mahatma Gandhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that dictators Hitler and Mussolini were also very ‘powerful brands’.
Facing heat over his remarks, Vij withdrew his remarks though without an apology, but it was not before he was condemned by his Central party leadership and his Chief Minister Ml Khattar. While BJP said these were Vij’s personal views and the party does not associate itself with his remarks, Khattar said the comments are ‘not linked with the party’.
‘The party does not associate itself with his remarks. These are his personal comments. We condemn them,’ BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said adding that Vij has withdrawn his remarks. ‘The statement given by me in connection with Mahatma Gandhi was given in my personal capacity. To avoid hurting anyone’s sentiments, I am withdrawing it,’ Vij tweeted following countrywide rage against him.
The Congress vice-president took to twitter to chastise Vij for his comments that drew widespread criticism, even his party condemning the statement. ‘Hitler and Mussolini were also very powerful brands,’ Rahul said in a tweet.
Rahul earlier had tweeted ‘The Mangalayaan effect,’ mentioning that Modi was trying to take credit for the promotion of khadi and village industries, an idea which had been close to the heart of the Father of the Nation, as he had allegedly done after India’s spacecraft Mangalayaan landed on the Mars.
BJP hits out at Congress over its attack on BJP, saying it has no moral right to speak about the father of the nation as it only ‘misused’ his name and photograph all these years while the BJP Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ‘promoted’ his philosophies of Khadi and swachhta.
Vij courted a controversy with remarks that Mahatma Gandhi’s image did not help Khadi and caused devaluation of the currency, sparking widespread outrage.
‘Anil Vij is our senior minister and makes statement with due care. But still what one says in his personal capacity, it is not linked with the party. As far as Khadi is concerned, credit goes to Mahatma Gandhi. It was because of him that Khadi got promoted,’ Khattar said.