Even as the Congress and other opposition parties continue to criticise remarks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi projecting the selling of pakodas as a means of employment, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel is the latest leader to join the 'pakoda debate'.
Patel was speaking at a function of a tribal community in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday. Referring to Modi's remarks, Patel claimed making pakodas was a skill and those making “pakodas for two years could open their own restaurant in the third year... and a hotel in four-six years.”
Modi had made the contentious remarks in an interview with a television channel in January; opposition parties criticised the remarks, while in several places, groups of youth, some of them affiliated with political groups, sold pakodas, often dressed in degree robes.
Interestingly, the BJP has sought to turn the debate into an issue of the 'respectability' of small vendors. In Bhopal, the BJP organised a march to the Congress' headquarters on Saturday with pakoda vendors to protest the opposition party selling the snacks to highlight criticism of Modi.
Last week, in his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha, BJP chief Amit Shah claimed it was better to sell pakodas than to beg.
