Journalism of Courage
A day after Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde called Arvind Kejriwal a “mad chief minister”, the Congress on Thursday resorted to semantics to defend him, saying Shinde had called the Delhi Chief Minister “ignorant” and not “mad”.
Congress spokesperson Randip Surjewala argued that the Marathi word “yeda” used by Shinde does not mean mad and argued it can at best be translated as ignorant.
“If you go into the local dialect the word “yeda” used by Shinde (in Marathi) is interchangeable with the word “bawala” in Hindi, which means “nasamajh” (ignorant),” he told reporters. He said all that the Home Minister was pointing out was that the Chief Minister had “lack of appropriate knowledge of law and constitution and responsibility of governance”.
“To attribute any other motive to the Home Minister will be unfair to him. He was using honorifics like ‘Sri’ and ‘Ji’ for Kejriwal even though he (CM) and other leaders of AAP were using completely objectionable adjectives for Shinde who is 25 years elder to Kejriwal,” Surjewala said. He said Shinde was seasoned politician who knows his language and the need for maintaining decency and decorum in politics.
