In a show of political nicety, BJP president Amit Shah snubbed a party cadre for calling Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi ‘Pappu.’

Shah was making a point about how the BJP is the only party with internal democracy and that unlike Congress, no one knows who would replace him as the party chief at a function in Lucknow on Sunday. The function was organised by the “intellectual cell” of the ruling party.

“Everyone knows who is going to be the next Congress president after Sonia Gandhi… Isn’t it? Tell me, who?” Shah had asked. In response someone from the audience shouted, ‘pappu,’ an infamous sobriquet used to troll Congress vice president on social media.

“Yeh sab mat kahiye (No, don’t say this),” Shah promptly retorted.

The Uttar Pradesh BJP was quick to hail Shah’s political civility.

“Our party and our party chief have set very high standards. The rebuke by the party chief for a term used for an opposition leader goes to prove this,” said UP BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak.

But the Congress was not amused.

“They (BJP) cleverly create such controversies. The one who made the remark surely is a party worker. Why hasn’t he been sacked so far for making such a derogatory remark against our leader?” asked UP Congress leader Devendra Pratap Singh.

Earlier in June, Congress sacked its Meerut district unit chief Vinay Pradhan for using the term in ‘praise’ of Gandhi.

Singh claimed that ‘Pappu’ was coined by what he called, the “BJP’s dirty tricks department.”

At the function, Shah said none could guess who would replace him at the party’s helm because of the “robust internal democracy” existing in the BJP. The BJP chief then went on to take a pot shot at the Samajwadi Party for its internal feud.

“Sometimes people commit mistake in selecting a successor between a son and a brother,” said Shah, in an oblique reference to Akhilesh Yadav removing his father Mulayam Singh Yadav from the post of national president of the SP and taking complete control of the party before assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

“The BJP stands apart from other parties because of its internal democracy. Be it Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP or RJD, all are family based parties,” Shah said.

He urged the gathering to judge parties on the basis of their internal democracy, ideology and their working style.

“During Congress rule (10 years of UPA govt) everyone in the party was Prime Minister. But no one considered Manmohan Singh a Prime Minister,” Shah continued.

He was referring to allegation that the 10 Janpath, official residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, was the power centre during the UPA regime.

The BJP president took the opportunity to give credit to the people of UP for “enabling the BJP to form the government at the Centre.”

“Had people of UP not given 73 out of 80 seats to BJP (in2014 Lok Sabha polls), BJP would not have been able to form the government at the Centre,” Shah said.

The BJP national president assured the gathering that with Yogi Adityanath as chief minister, the state would now get benefits of all 106 schemes launched by PM Narendra Modi till date.

“Earlier, all these schemes were not rolled out in UP. But now CM Yogi Adityanath will ensure that they are implemented in the state properly.”

Shah also assured that at the end of BJP’s five year rule in Uttar Pradesh, the state would shed the tag of ‘Bimaru state’.

The Bimaru is an acronym used to define underdevelopment and poor social indices in Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP.

“The BJP ruled states like MP and Rajasthan no more come under the category of Bimaru state. Soon UP and Bihar will also shed this tag,” said Shah.

“Bihar did very well when BJP was part of the government there. For sometimes there was problem but two days ago we have solved this problem. Now, Bihar will also prosper,” said Shah.

He was referring to JD (U) snapping its ties with the RJD and returning to its old ally BJP to form government in the state.

Shah also highlighted benefits of PM Modi’s Ujjwala scheme, under which free LPG are distributed to rural poor.

Sharing policies of the BJP national president with the audience, Adityanath referred Shah as ‘modern day Chanakya.’