Sidharth Nath Singh during a press conference at BJP office in Lucknow. Vishal Srivastav Sidharth Nath Singh during a press conference at BJP office in Lucknow. Vishal Srivastav

A DAY after Rahul Gandhi tweeted that BJP president Amit Shah’s son Jay was “the only beneficiary of demonetisation”, state Cabinet Minister Sidharth Nath Singh called the Congress vice-president a balak (boy) “who does not want to step out of his diaper”. Speaking to mediapersons at the BJP state headquarters in Lucknow, Singh described as “supari journalism”, a report in The Wire, which had alleged that the turnover of Jay’s company had grown from Rs 50,000 in March 2015 to Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16.

Singh added that Congress was making it an issue in view of the upcoming Gujarat elections. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had also rejected the report on Sunday.

On Sunday, Rahul had tweeted: “We finally found the only beneficiary of Demonetisation. It’s not the RBI, the poor or the farmers. It’s the Shah-in-Shah of Demo. Jai Amit.”

Reacting to the tweet, Singh said: “Mai Rahul Gandhiji ko itna hi kehna chahta hoon… yeh durbhagya hai Congress ka ki yeh balak bada hi nai ho raha hai… woh apne napkin ya jisko hum angrezi me diaper kehte hain… usse bahar hi nahi nikalna chah rahe hain… he does not want to step out of his diaper (I want to tell Rahul Gandhi… it’s Congress’ misfortune that he is not growing up… he does not want to step out of his diaper).”

“If he had studied, he would have seen that Jay Amit Shah had wind up his business in October, 2016 while demonetisation was announced on November 8… Rahul has done self goal,” he claimed.

Taking on mediapersons, the UP government spokesperson said: “A new passion could be seen in journalism… with the creation of a web portal and posting any sensational news on it about any renowned person or his family, which helps running the portal… I am not saying that all journalists are like that… most are very good.”

He added that when this new practice had started, a new term has come to the fore — “supari journalism”. “Toh yeh supari journalism chal raha hai,” said Singh.

Responding to Congress state president Raj Babbar’s remark on Monday that BJP has evolved a new “beta business model”, Singh said the statement was misleading and was a tactic that Congress had learnt from the Aam Aadmi Party. He went on to ask Congress to explain its “damaad model” and “National Herald” models.

“Damaadji (Robert Vadra) made profit of Rs 50 crore without investing a single rupee in land deals in Haryana,” Singh said. The war of words comes a day before Amit Shah is scheduled to visit Rahul’s Lok Sabha constituency of Amethi, where he would announce several projects in the presence of Union ministers, including Smriti Irani.

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