For the second time in six months, Vice President Dr Hamid Ansari has become the target of a motivated hate campaign.
The first was at the Republic Day parade, when there was manufactured ire generated over the fact that photographs showed Dr Ansari not saluting the tricolour. If those whose sensibilities were apparently hurt had only taken the time to read up on the Flag Code before venting their ire, they would have known that Ansari was strictly going by protocol. Once this fact became known, the so-called controversy died a natural death.
There was similar outrage on Sunday following the needless criticism of Dr Ansari’s absence at New Delhi’s Rajpath, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with thousands was celebrating the International Yoga Day, by the BJP general secretary Ram Madhav; that the latter deleted his comments after it was clarified by the vice president’s office that no invitation had been extended to him, made it only worse.
And the subsequent reasoning offered by Shripad Naik, the AYUSH minister whose office organised the grand IYD, that the vice president was not invited since the prime minister was the chief guest, has also been rubbished by the vice president’s office.
For seeing a controversy where none exists, and for bringing the constitutional post of the vice president under fire, let us boo Ram Madhav.
