'Eh Bhaiya Kithon Agha?' Manish Tewari Admits Facing Social Bias in Punjab Amid Channi's 'UP Bhaiye' Row

In a series of tweets, Congress MP Manish Tewari came down heavily on Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s recent “UP, Bihar ke bhaiyya” jibe and said that “such thinking has no place in the secular ethos of the northern Indian state.

Tewari, the MP from Anandpur Sahib under which Channi‘s constituency ‘Chamkaur’ comes, likened the ‘bhaiyya’ controversy to the “Black issue in the US”.

“It is reflective of an unfortunate systemic and institutionalised social bias against migrants stretching back to the inception of the Green Revolution,” he said.

Sharing personal anecdotes, Tewari said that at a personal level, despite his mother being Jat Sikh and father being the foremost exponent of Punjab, “Punjabi- Punjabiyat who laid down his life for Hindu- Sikh amity because of my surname it is said behind my back ‘Eh Bhaiya Kithon Agha’ peppered with the choicest expletives in Punjabi – We have to root it out.”

“Such thinking should have no place in the Secular ethos of Punjab grounded in the idiom – Manas Ki Jaat Sabhe Ek Pechan,” Tewari said in his concluding tweet.

Channi on Wednesday stoked a controversy when he said he won’t let “UP, Bihar ke bhaiyya” enter the state as a laughing, clapping Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — Congress incharge for UP — stood by him.

The remark did not go down well with the opposition as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal called the comment “shameful”. “We strongly condemn comments aimed at any individual or any particular community. Priyanka Gandhi also belongs to UP, so she is also a bhaiya.”

BJP too termed the comment an insult to people from UP and Bihar. The party’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya said Congress wants to divide the people of the country. “When the CM of Punjab insults people of UP, Bihar, Priyanka Vadra stands by him, smiles and applauds. This is how Congress will develop UP and the country? It is making people fight among themselves,” he tweeted in Hindi along with the video of Channi’s speech.

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