An appeal from former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to people of the State to come out on streets to light candles and lamps landed him in trouble late on Saturday night, resulting in him replacing the video appeal by the new one on Sunday.
In the video Mr. Fadnavis said, “Every citizen should participate in the drive by lighting a lamp and come to their doors, streets, terraces…”
Also read: PM Modi’s appeal on lighting lamps is BJP’s hidden agenda, says H.D. Kumaraswamy
His appeal attracted ire from the social media and criticism from the parties like the Congress, as all governments are advocating social distancing. Mr. Modi has appealed to the people to stay indoors for 21 days calling the lockdown in the entire country. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray too has been daily appealing to the citizens to not come out on streets unless necessary.
“We strongly condemn the irresponsible statement from Maharashtra’s Leader of Opposition. We have seen that on an earlier call of thali bajao by Modiji , how many BJP followers had come on streets and made a mockery of social distancing. Does BJP want to make Markaj 2.0? We demand unconditional apology from the BJP,” said Maharashtra Congress committee spokesperson Sachin Sawant.
Faced with criticism and trolling on social media, Mr. Fadnavis removed the reference of “coming out on streets”. No one from the BJP was available for comment on the goof-up.
Mr. Fadnavis earlier became the centre of criticism after he appealed to people to donate for the Central government’s PM-CARES fund instead of asking people to donate to the CM relief fund.
