Mahendra Nath Pandey's, BJP Uttar Pradesh chief, 'shawl' remark on Mayawati sparks row

Days after Bharatiya Janata Party (BSP) legislator made a derogatory remark against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, party’s Uttar Pradesh state president Mahendra Nath Pandey on Tuesday made an objectionable comment on her. The BJP MP from Chandauli, Pandey, mocked her party alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) by referring to infamous guest house incident.

“I saw on social media that a youth had posted that Akhilesh ji is wrapping a shawl around Mayawati ji. The youth writes in his post, putting words in Akhilesh’s mouth: this is the same shawl which my father took off in the guest house (Meine social media pe dekha ek naujavan ne post kar diya ki Shri Akhilesh ji, Maya ji ko shawl pehna rahe hain, Toh naujavan likhta hai niche –Akhilesh ke mooh se ki... ye wahi shawl hai jo guest house mein pita ji ne utara tha.),” he said while addressing a public meeting in Chandauli.

#WATCH: UP Min MN Pandey says,' Meine social media pe dekha ek naujavan ne post kar diya ki Shri Akhilesh ji, Maya ji ko shawl pehna rahe hain, Toh naujavan likhta hai niche –Akhilesh ke mooh se ki... ye wahi shawl hai jo guest house mein pita ji ne utara tha. (28-01-2019) pic.twitter.com/E19CF06HJ2

— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2019

According to a report in News18, Union Ministers JP Nadda and Manoj Sinha were also present at the event where Pandey made this remark.

This is not the first time when such a derogatory remark has been made against the former chief minister. Earlier a massive controversy erupted after a BJP lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh, Sadhana Singh, called her 'worse than eunuch'. Reacting to the SP-BSP alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP lawmaker from Mughalsarai had said that a woman who was disrobed is now compromising with the perpetrators, "she is worse than a eunuch".

The BJP has been targeting the BSP and Samajwadi Party ever since they announced a pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh for Lok Sabha Elections 2019. However, this is not the first time the two parties have come together.

Nearly 26 years ago in 1993, the Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram had fought the elections together. However, their government could not last long and crashed after growing differences between them.