New Delhi:
The Tharoors, Shashi and Sunanda, are inspiring BJP leaders to outdo one another in thinking up epithets for them. The opposition party is not earning brownie points in the bargain.
The rejoinder to Shashi Tharoor's heart-on-sleeve rap on Narendra Modi's knuckle for insulting his wife has come not from the Gujarat Chief Minister, but Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who has said, "For an international Love Guru like him, a ministry of Love Affairs should be created."
Mr Naqvi is a BJP spokesperson and speaks for the party. His allusion is to Mr Tharoor's heroic tweet and statement yesterday when he said, "My wife is priceless, beyond any imaginary 50 crores but you have to be able to love someone to understand that and we'll have to see if he is capable of understanding that."
Mr Tharoor was responding to Mr Modi's sexist reference to his wife, Sunanda Tharoor, as a "50-crore-girlfriend" at an election rally in Himachal Pradesh.
Mr Modi's comment has earned him universal opprobrium. People ripped him apart on Twitter, the social media platform he uses extensively, for what most saw as a below-the-belt attack on Mr Tharoor, who made a comeback into the union council of ministers in Sunday's reshuffle.
"Let us not vitiate the public discourse to this level," said Mr Tharoor's newly appointed colleague, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, on Mr Naqvi's comments.
Mr Tharoor was forced to resign in 2010 as a minister after allegations of a conflict of interest in promoting an IPL team for Kochi which was linked to Sunanda, whom he married months after quitting office. After being sworn in on Sunday, Mr Tharoor had said, "The controversies were created more by the media, the whole IPL issue has been behind me for several years now. "
But Mr Modi thought otherwise and raked it up the very next day when he said, "Wah kya girlfriend hai. Apne kabhi dekha hai 50 crore ka girlfriend? (What a girlfriend? Have you ever seen a 50-crore girlfriend)." And qualified that astonishing statement by saying, "There was a Congress leader who was a minister. He was accused of amassing wealth from cricket. He had said in Parliament that he is not connected to the Rs. 50 crore in the lady's name...And then girlfriend becomes wife, we learn some time later...the issues are still not settled and he is now made a minister."
Will Mr Tharoor, known to be quick on the draw on Twitter, best the BJP today as well? Watch this space.