Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia made the remark while speaking to reporters about the state Budget presented by chief minister Ashok Gehlot.
Satish Poonia slammed the Congress for presenting a populist Budget (File)
The Rajasthan budget is akin to a dark-skinned bride-to-be who is taken to the beauty parlour to make her look fair, state BJP president and MLA Satish Punia said today in a bizarre and sexist comment. Calling the budget populist, the opposition BJP has alleged that although the government has made several announcements, it does not have the money to fulfill them.
The MLA, criticizing the state dispensation over the populist budget, said, “The Budget presented by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is like a dark bride-to-be being taken to the beauty parlour to have her makeup done so she looks fair.”
“The government has made promises one after the other today. But I want to know where the money is to fulfill those promises. I can assure you that all the promises made by the state government in the budget may not be fulfilled,” the Leader of the Opposition Gulabchand Kataria said.
Politicians have for long been caught on the wrong foot for their regressive remarks. Last November, Rajasthan Congress MLA Rajendra Singh Gudha was caught on camera saying the roads in his constituency should be like “Katrina Kaif’s cheeks”. The comment caused massive outrage on Twitter, with users calling him out for his inappropriate comments and demanding a response from Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been talking about issues faced by women in her poll campaigns.
In 2005, Lalu Prasad Yadav had allegedly promised that the roads in Bihar would be “as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks”. The former Bihar chief minister subsequently denied making the comment, accusing his rivals of falsely attributing it to him.
In 2013, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government caused a furore by allegedly promising to construct roads in the state’s Pratapgarh district “like the cheeks of actresses Hema Malini and Madhuri Dixit”. He was eventually sacked for his remark.
The same year, BJP leader and then Chhattisgarh Minister Brijmohan Agarwal compared the state’s roads to actress Hema Malini. His supporters had gone all-out, issuing full-page advertisements with pictures of the actress and the state’s roads that read: “Swapn sundari samaan pradesh ki chamchamati sadken (Beautiful roads of the state shining like the Dream Girl)”.
Former Madhya Pradesh Law Minister PC Sharma courted controversy for similar comments in 2019. He compared the condition of roads in the state to the cheeks of BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya and assured the electorate that his government would make them like Hema Malini’s.
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