Giriraj faces storm, FIR filed
Sonia says she won’t respond to ‘ narrow mindset’ people; BJP says matter over after minister’s ‘ regret’
As the BJP tried to downplay the controversial remarks by Union minister Giriraj Singh against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi by saying the matter should be put to rest because the minister had already expressed “regret”, a complaint was filed against Mr Singh in a Bihar court on Thursday by a Congress worker, and a court ordered the police to register an FIR.
Mrs Gandhi, visiting Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district to meet farmers whose crops had been damaged due to unseasonal rains, said on Thursday she didn’t want to respond to people “with a narrow mindset”, as Congress workers staged big protests in New Delhi, Bengaluru and across the country demanding that the minister be sacked. The minister kicked up a huge row with remarks asking if the Congress would have accepted Mrs Gandhi as leader had she not been white, and was a Nigerian instead. BJP president Amit Shah had spoken to Mr Singh Wednesday itself and pulled him up over these offensive comments.
The Youth Congress staged a protest outside Mr Singh’s residence in New Delhi while another demonstration was held by
A court in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur directed the police to register an FIR against Union minister and BJP Lok Sabha MP Giriraj Singh for making racial comments against Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The complaint was filed by Congress worker Sanjay Kumar Singh in the chief judicial magistrate court ( CJM), which was later transferred to the sub- divisional judicial magistrate court. The SDJM court further asked the local police to lodge a case against the minister.
“The SDJM court has directed the police here to lodge a case against the minister for his alleged racial remarks against Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The court has asked the police to register a case under Section 166 of the IPC,” lawyer for the petitioner Sumit Kumar said. “The statement shows the kind of politics the BJP is doing. The level of the party has gone down,” state Congress president Ashok Choudhary said.
The comments not only angered the Congress and other parties, but also led to criticism from the BJP’s own allies. Rashtriya Loktantrik Samata Party chief Upendra Kushwaha, an ally of the NDA, said: “He ( Mr Singh) is a habitual offender and is infamous for talking loosely and making baseless comments. Senior BJP leaders must put a stop to such statements.”