‘Chowkidar chor hai’: Uddhav borrows Rahul ‘s slogan to target Modi

TIL Desk/National/Mumbai/  Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has mouthed the Congress’ oft-repeated jibe of chowkidar chor hai (the guard is a thief) made in the context of the Rafale fighter jet deal to mount a veiled attack on his senior ally — the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been repeatedly hurling the chowkidar chor hai jibe at Modi to claim irregularities and favouritism in the Rafale deal and award of offset contracts related to the Rs 58,000-crore defence agreement with France. However, the government has rejected the charges.

Addressing a rally in Pandharpur in Maharashtra’s Solapur district, Thackeray used the slogan in a different context while narrating an incident. Thackeray said, “In one of the state tours, a farmer showed me a pest-infested lime tree. The lime tree is actually used to make pesticides but this was a plant that was infested with pest.

“The farmer told me that for the first time in his lifetime, he had seen a lime tree getting infested, which they have been using to make pesticides. I had told him that now, days have changed. Security persons have become thieves.””Halli paharekarich chorya karaylaa laagale aahet. (Today, security persons have themselves become thieves),” he said in Marathi. Paharekari is a Marathi equivalent of the Hindi word chowkidar.