BJP, Cong. train their guns at each other over jackets

BJP tried to get even with Rahul over his ‘suit-boot’ remark

Congress president Rahul Gandhi with Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma at a musical evening in Shillong.

This is one jacket over which both the BJP and the Congress are finding it hard to keep their shirts on. The political arch rivals tore into each other after the Meghalaya unit of the BJP, in an apparent bid to get even with Rahul Gandhi over his “suit-boot” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claimed the Congress chief wore a jacket worth ₹63,000 to a concert in Shillong on Tuesday.

“So @OfficeOfRG, soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with ‘black’ money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!,” the BJP’s Meghalaya unit tweeted.

The party’s State unit also tweeted an image of a Burberry jacket, similar to the one that Gandhi wore, having a price tag of $995 a (little over ₹63,000).

In another tweet, the BJP alleged the Congress government in Meghalaya was mired in corruption. It said instead of attending a musical event, Gandhi should have given a report card of the State government.

Out on the hustings in the hill State, an unfazed Mr. Gandhi fired his “suit-boot ki sarkar” salvo at Modi afresh, saying he was always found in the company of people attired in suits and not those that are poor.

“You will not see him [Modi] hug a poor person, talk to a poor person or even engage with a poor person. There is a particular distance he maintains with the poor people,” he told journalists in Shillong.