Congress should start 'Nehru Hookah Bar', says C T Ravi

BJP national general secretary C T Ravi on Thursday suggested that the Congress should start a hookah bar named after former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Ravi said this at a news conference where he defended his call to rename the Indira Canteens after Goddess Annapoorneshwari.

“Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984. Canteens in her name were started in 2017. Was it out of love? No, it was pure politics,” Ravi said, and asked why Congress governments did not open the Indira Canteens in the early 90s or 2000s.

“They wanted to make money by keeping Indira Gandhi's name. Should we accept that? Our opposition is because this canteen is political. Let them open an Indira Canteen or a Nehru Bar, a Nehru Hookah Bar in the Congress office. Nobody will object,” Ravi said.

Ravi argued that ‘Annapoorneshwari’ was not a political name. “She’s the goddess of food. We pray to her as part of our culture,” he said.

Maintaining that the BJP had no prejudice towards Nehru or Indira, Ravi said he had a problem with the claim that only the Gandhi family had contributed to the nation. “We accept the good decisions Nehru made. His misadventures need rectification. There’s no prejudice against Indira as well. Both Nehru and Indira have contributed to the nation. But to say only they contributed is foolish and servile,” Ravi said, adding that 217 schemes were named after them. “Aren’t there others?”

Reacting to this, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah asked Ravi why a stadium was named after PM Modi in Gujarat. “Why is something named after Arun Jaitley in Delhi? In Yeshwanthpur, why is a flyover named after Deenadayal Upadhayay? And Sarvarkar’s name has been used in Yelahanka,” he said. “Do we speak lightly about Vajpayee or Advani? C T Ravi doesn’t know history. They are the ones who say they’d rewrite the Constitution,” he said.