Is he 👇 our Ex Army Chief ?🐯 Is he 👇stooping for favours? What a come down.🐀 #PadmaAward4Bhakts Republic Day Army 😆 pic.twitter.com/61DYE4e3A7
— Baba Gnome (@GnomeBaba) January 25, 2016
And now, for your daily Twitter bhakt-vs-sickular controversy. On Monday, a twitter handle put out a video of a man who looked somewhat like former Army chief VK Singh, currently Minister of State for External Affairs, touching the feet of Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah.
The video seemed to confirm all sorts of notions about the state of the BJP and about VK Singh. Here was proof that the former army chief, who is also older than Shah, had given up his military pride to work at Shah's feet. It also seemed to confirm the feeling that Shah's BJP is run on the basis of absolute devotion to the party president.
That original tweet racked up nearly 750 retweets and the video bounced around Indian twitter. Those opposed to the BJP and Singh immediately picked it up as a proof of the feudal nature of the party and further proof of the former army chief selling out the military for politics.
He may be BJP chief. But the guy touching his feet is INDIA's ex Army CHIEF. Nothing #shame can be than this. pic.twitter.com/w0Ktvp2Z5c
— ਪੋਲਿਟੋ polito (@ryt_3) January 25, 2016
While those who side with the ruling party, immediately came to Singh's defence, insisting that there was nothing wrong with the former army chief attempting to touch the feet of the BJP President.
@ajaishukla @ryt_3 @nanditathhakur if so also what's wrong in it?It's our culture to touch d feet.R u foreign born?Y the hell questioning?
— Himanshu Thakkar (@Rajbobbyy) January 26, 2016
The minister's own twitter account quickly jumped into the game, although a tweet from the verified handle appeared to have been written by someone from his team rather than Singh himself (unless he happens to be in the habit of referring to himself in the third person).
@GnomeBaba not ex chief. Some morphing seems to have been done. He never puts muffler like shown here. Which prestitute?Or is it your work?
— Vijay Kumar Singh (@Gen_VKSingh) January 25, 2016
As expected, the issue is continuing to ricochet around Indian twitter, with a few confused BJP supporters tweeting to the minister to clarify further that it's not him while others have gone on attack against the anti-BJP lot that have gleefully retweeted the video.
@GnomeBaba also put a link to the entire video, which was a broadcast of the event at which Amit Shah was once again elected to the BJP Presidency, uploaded by the party itself.
It's hard to tell whether the man at the 1:42:40 mark is Singh or not, but some idle YouTubing would suggest that it's not. First of all, once the man walks off, he looks a lot less like the former army chief.
Singh does clearly turn up much earlier in the video, with a few other BJP members of Parliament, wearing something similar.
But around the 1:35:01 mark it also seems like Singh has already done the task of greeting Shah on being reappointed to the presidency.
It's nobody's case that outdated forms of devotion no longer exist in Indian politics, as the Jayalalithaa fan club might attest, or even Shah himself.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that VK Singh was party to it in this case. Either ways, the final word was again had by someone on twitter.
Gen VK Singh clarifies its not him in video touching feet. Its another VK Singh with diff. DOB & 1 Yr junior to him pic.twitter.com/ymgKThn27m
— Sir Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhaqat) January 26, 2016
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