The Trinamool Congress has started a campaign against Home Minister Amit Shah branding him as “India’s Biggest Pappu” after its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee used the phrase last week to attack Mr. Shah soon after he was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the coal smuggling case.
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Mr. Banerjee’s cousins Akash Banerjee and Aditi Gayen, took to social media wearing T-shirts with Mr. Shah’s photograph and “India’s biggest Pappu” written over them. The party’s youth wing is planning to popularise the T-shirt ahead of the Durga Puja festivities. Sources in the Trinamool said Abhishek Banerjee has planned the T-shirt campaign.
The word “pappu” entered Indian political lexicon after the BJP starting using it as a taunt against former Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
Donning the t-shirt, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’ Brien, in a video posted on Twitter, listed out the reasons why Mr. Shah has “earned” the title. “The law and order in Delhi is under him. He has failed. Instead, he has become the puppeteer of the CBI and ED. BSP and CRPF — highly respected institutions, are not doing so well under him, because he is Modi’s most incompetent Minister,” Mr. O’Brien said.
He also hit out at Mr. Shah for the alleged misuse of the CBI, saying that it only targets States ruled by non-BJP parties. “He is supposed to protect the poor, instead he hurts them and protects the corrupt like Narayan Rane, Suvendu Adhikari and Hemant Biswa Sarma,” Mr. O’ Brien said, listing out all the leaders who had joined the BJP over the years.