Drawing parallels between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama and citing them as examples, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said it was possible to transcend social barriers and assume positions of power. “Those who speak of the common man, I want to tell them that it is the BJP that respects the common man. This is the reason the US President spoke of of how only in a democracy a chaiwala’s son can become the Prime Minister and a rasoiwala’s grandson from Kenya can become the President of the United States,” Prasad said while addressing a jansabha in RK Puram. Prasad was speaking to a gathering of nearly 300 people at the community centre in Sector-6, Rohini, which is home to predominantly Class IV government employees. “Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s father was a field worker and Khattar himself didn’t have money to become a doctor — something he wanted. But he became a party worker, and today, he is the CM. Jharkhand’s CM Raghuvar Das was a Class IV employee. Look at where he is today. Only in the BJP is it possible for a Class IV employee to become the chief minister,” Prasad said. Taking a dig at AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, the Union minister said, “Ek taraf aam aadmi ka drama hai aur ek taraf aam aadmi ka samman hai. Yeh aapko tay karna hai” (On one side you have people pretending to be the common man and on the other side there are those who respect the common man. You will have to choose). He concluded his speech with a reference to the BJP chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi as an “imaandar, sangharsheel, jhujharu neta” (honest, hardworking and enthusiastic). “Today, a newspaper wrote about Bedi when she was the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Transport). In the interest of the public, she had ordered her inspectors to challan any vehicle in Connaught Place that were found violating parking rules. An inspector found Indira Gandhi’s car parked. She was the Prime Minister at that time. He issued a challan but was suspended. But Bedi was firm. She said he was doing his duty. She was transferred to Goa later and she took it without a protest. If such a woman becomes your CM, you can well imagine how the common man will benefit,” he said.
