Never one to let go of an opportunity to troll Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has now taken a swipe at an award the PM won on Monday.
Modi was awarded the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award on Monday. The Prime Minister's Office tweeted on Monday that the Philip Kotler Presidential Award “focusses on the triple bottom-line of people, profit and planet”. The award will be offered annually to the leader of a country. The award has been instituted in the name of Philip Kotler, a renowned marketing guru.
I want to congratulate our PM, on winning the world famous “Kotler Presidential Award”!
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 15, 2019
In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company.
Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)https://t.co/449Vk9Ybmz
Tweeting on the Philip Kotler Award for Modi, Gandhi referred to the award as being “world famous” in an apparent attempt to highlight its relative lack of publicity and seemingly obscure origins. Gandhi tweeted, “I want to congratulate our PM, on winning the world famous 'Kotler Presidential Award'! In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company...”
Gandhi also attached a report from The Wire, an online publication, which claimed there was no clarity about the jury or selection process involved in selecting an winner for the Philip Kotler Presidential Award. The publication also claimed the Philip Kotler Presidential Award was given by the World Marketing Summit, an organisation that held an event in Delhi in December, which was co-sponsored by Patanjali, associated with Baba Ramdev, and Republic TV.
Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the ‘Bharat Ratna’ on themselves. https://t.co/ipzyRrXNiX
— Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) January 15, 2019
Gandhi's tweet poking fun at the Philip Kotler Award for Modi evoked a response from Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani. Irani tweeted, “Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the ‘Bharat Ratna’ on themselves,” referring to the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had all won the Bharat Ratna. Irani was among a number of BJP Union ministers who congratulated Modi on winning the Philip Kotler Presidential Award.
Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) general secretary, also tweeted the The Wire report, claiming “My personal congratulations to Narendra Modi for winning the world's 'first-ever' 'very confidential award'. No one else could have won this award.”
