Ramnagar: West Bengal Minister and veteran Trinamool Congress leader Akhil Giri has courted a fresh controversy with his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi linking him with the recent decree of the Animal Welfare Board on the eve of Valentine's Day. It issued a directive asking people to celebrate Valentine's Day as 'Cow Hug Day' in an apparent moral policing.
Giri, while speaking at a meeting organised by the Trinamool Congress at RSA Maidan in Ramnagar on Thursday taunted PM Modi-led BJP government for the directive of the Animal Welfare Board. "The 14th (February) was Valentine's Day, the day when boys and girls express their love and exchange roses. But, the Prime Minister wants people to hug a cow." The TMC's meeting at RSA Maidan was organised after BJP's National President JP Nadda attended a meeting at the same venue in Ramnagar on Sunday.
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Taking a jibe at the BJP meeting, Giri said that the saffron party had “borrowed” people from outside West Bengal. The Trinamool claimed that the BJP “could not fill the field even by bringing people from the neighbouring state of Odisha”. "People were brought in lorries from the neighboring state of Odisha to fill the ground. Don't come here to show so much power. And today's meeting has at least twice as many people as the BJP,” Giri said at Thursday's Trinamool meeting.
Kunal Ghosh, another TMC leader, speaking on the occasion taunted BJP President JP Nadda. "He who cannot win Himachal Pradesh where the BJP was in power, has come here to give lectures. Having lost his state, he has come here to become a broker for Suvendu Adhikari (West Bengal BJP leader)," Ghosh said in a dig at BJP's defeat in Himachal assembly polls at the hands of the Congress.
The West Bengal BJP has targeted the TMC over Giri's remarks on PM Modi. Kanthi organizational district president of BJP Sudam Pandit said the TMC has “destroyed the state through corruption”. “We don't have to call people like them. Trinamool leaders have lost their minds. That is why they are talking like this." It may be recalled that Giri had courted controversy in November last year as well by his alleged remarks about President Droupadi Murmu. He later apologised for his remarks.