Ahead of the Budget Session next week, the Congress and Trinamool Congress took potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over putting his pinstripe bandhgala suit on the block. The NCP also too took a dig at the bidding saying the dress was being auctioned “with Prime Minister’s prestige”.
The Congress and Trinamool said the auction was a “damage control” exercise on part of Modi and his party BJP while Congress opposed the auction of the controversial Modi suit and other gift items received by him and said these should be deposited in the Toshakhana.
“This is happening three weeks after the suit was worn by Modi... This is a damage control exercise. Damage control of his reputation,” Congress General Secretary Ajay Maken said soon after a Surat-based textile businessman, Rajesh Juneja, bid a whopping Rs 1.21 crore for the suit at the three-day auction which opened on Wednesday.
“Wearing of a suit of Rs 10 lakh was criticised not only in India, but globally... The people didn’t like the way the Prime Minister wore the suit while meeting the President of US... So as a damage control exercise this was done by the Prime Minister,” Maken said.
Trinamool Congress too termed it a Damage Control Public Relations. “This is DCPR, Damage Control Public Relations, this has nothing to do with Ganga cleaning,” TMC leader Derek O’Brien MP tweeted.
Modi had worn the pinstripe monogrammed bandhgala suit during US President Barack Obama’s visit to India last month. The suit that created waves and kicked up a political storm was put up for auction along with 455 items that Modi had received as gifts during his nearly nine-month long tenure as prime minister to generate funds for his ‘Clean Ganga Mission’. NCP spokesman D P Tripathi said the suit is being auctioned with the Prime Minister’s prestige. “He should not have wore it”, he said.