The war of words between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Beni Prasad Verma plunged to new lows after Mulayam Singh Yadav called Beni “another Digvijaya Singh”. Although the two leaders have been trading insults regularly – Beni most recently remarked that Mulayam was “not even fit for the job of a sweeper at the PM’s residence” to which Mulayam retorted that Beni is an “opium smuggler” – the Yadav strongman’s latest verbal salvo, has stunned not just the Congress party but the entire polity.
“This being an election year sharp rhetoric and hyperbole is inevitable but to speak of someone in the same breath as Diggy is taking things a bit too far. No politician deserves to be slandered thus to score personal and political brownie points, not even Beniji,” said a veteran leader, shock written all over his shriveled face.
Diggy himself was one of the first to demand an apology from Mulayam. “Sometimes even I feel insulted for being myself then imagine how hurt Beniji must be feeling,” said the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister. The Samajwadi Party has also distanced itself from its chief’s remarks.
Meanwhile, Beni has conceded the battle of insults to Mulayam. “I’m afraid whatever I say in response to that will only seem like a compliment to him now. Its game, set and match to him,” he shrugged. Mulayam later expressed regret for his remarks. “In hindsight, it was extremely harsh and unparliamentary. I profusely apologize to Beni and hope he recovers to come back with a suitable rejoinder so that we can continue to entertain the masses with our public feud,” he read out from a statement.
In related news, Twitter has refused to verify Digvijaya Singh’s official Twitter handle, @digvijaya_28, steadfastly maintaining that it is a parody account. “We know tweets from this account are actually debated and discussed by news anchors on prime time but given how ludicrous some most all of them are, we maintain it is a parody account out to entertain the masses,” said a Twitter spokesperson. In an attempt to prove his account’s authenticity, Diggy himself tweeted in the physical presence of a Twitter account verification official but in vain as the Twitter official dismissed Diggy also as a ‘real life parody act’.