Tamilisai Soundararajan lashes out at Puducherry CM on pakoda issue

CHENNAI: The pakoda politics analogy took a new turn with the BJP state president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan accusing Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy of indulging in a low politics.

Lashing out at Mr Narayanasamy for staging a pakoda protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent remarks of selling pakodas to indicate job creation, Dr Tamilisai said, “its not healthy politics for a person of chief minister stature to stoop down to such a low level of staging an agitation.”

Only the Congress party was capable of belittling leaders. “When the Congress was in power, the educated especially the engineers were jobless and they could not even sell pakodas and the UPA government could not bestow attention. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi created employment opportunities for the educated youth,” Dr Tamilisai said and added one required “self confidence” to start business ventures and this was what the Central government ensured by creating a conducive industrial climate.

On Thursday Mr Narayanasamy had staged a pakoda protest against Mr Modi’s recent remarks on selling pakodas. The protesters named the fried snacks ‘Modi pakodas’ and ‘Arun Jaitley pakodas’ and distributed it to passers-by.

The PM had in a recent interview said a person selling ‘pakodas’ and earning Rs. 200 a day should be considered employed.

Referring to the views of the PM that “pakoda selling was employment too,” BJP president Amit Shah recently stated in the Rajya Sabha that “selling pakodas was better than being jobless.”