Rafale kerfuffle
The fronts have fallen silent, but a piece of pre-war parodising has come back to smite the Congress on its rear. On May 4, a dozen days of non-action had elapsed since Pahalgam, and UP Congress chief Ajay Rai felt time was ripe for a satirical send-up of his state mate, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh. He held up a toy Rafale, with a nimboo-mirchi evil-eye dangling from it, and waxed vitriolic: 'I want to ask the government when this lemon and chilli will be removed from the Rafale to avenge the attack?' It was a direct jibe at Rajnath's televised shastra puja in 2019, where he had placed a lemon under India's first Rafale fighter jet before drawing an 'Om' with turmeric on its snout.
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