Saket Gokhale of the Trinamool Congress took a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alleged that the latter’s public “interactions are staged”, even as a video of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being confronted by a man over the rising cost of living in the country has surfaced online.
In the video, Trudeau is seen interacting with his supporters. He also interacts with a child sitting in a stroller. Meanwhile, one man confronts Trudeau and says, “I am not shaking your hand bro, you are a piece of sh*t man.”
To this Trudeau enquires about the man’s intense reaction. The man said, “You have seriously mishandled this entire nation,” the man replies, conveying his dissatisfaction with the PM’s perceived influence on the country.
“How did I mess up this country?” Trudeau asks. The man then retorts, “Can anybody afford a home?”. He apparently emphasised the widespread housing crisis that Canadians are currently facing.
“You are charging people a carbon tax, you got 9 V8s here idling… You know what we’re doing with that carbon tax?” the man went on to ask.
Reposting the video clip on social media X, Gokhale said, “This is what free speech & democracy means.”
Claiming that Trudeau’s critic was “neither beaten up nor thrown into prison”, the Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member said, “PM of Canada freely met ordinary people (not staged). He was insulted by a critic. He tried engaging & then walked away.”
“Embarrassing is what passes for ‘democracy’ in India under Modi where even minor public interactions are staged, all that’s said is glowing praise, PM has no guts to address the press let alone take questions from people, & where critics are charged under terror laws,” Gokhale added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is yet to respond to Gokhale’s allegation. However, his post comes amid the escalating diplomatic row between New Delhi and Ottawa that erupted following Trudeau’s allegation linking Indian agents to the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June.
India has rejected the allegations as “absurd” and “motivated” and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official over the case.
The Indian government has reportedly given Ottawa until October 10 to reduce Canadian diplomatic staff in that country to a level on par with the number of Indian diplomats in Canada.
Global Affairs Canada, the department that manages the country’s diplomatic and consular relations, had previously stated that “with some diplomats having received threats on various social media platforms,” it was “assessing its staff complement in India.”
“As a result, and out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to temporarily adjust staff presence in India,” the department said, just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of being involved in the murder.
India on Thursday asserted that Canada must reduce its diplomatic presence in the country to achieve parity in strength and alleged that some of the Canadian diplomats are involved in interfering in New Delhi’s internal matters, signalling a continuing slide in the ties between the two nations.
(With inputs from agencies)
