Tripura Chief minister Biplab Deb has admitted guilt today for his heuristic questioning, for acclaiming Diana Hayden with the laurel of ‘Miss World’ in 1997, along with quoting his farce opinion by alleging that beauty pageants are a pratfall comedy. Finally, defending himself to the reporters, he said,“I was talking about how the handlooms of the state could be marketed well. If anybody is hurt or feeling defamed, I regret this… I respect all women as my mother.”
Deb, who has been a prevailing buzz on the social media for his “Internet in the Mahabharata era” obiter dictum some days earlier, had now set his stones rolling towards becoming a part of a brand new controversy by questioning the axiom of Diana Hayden’s victory in the beauty pageant 21 years ago. He also spits out that the ‘process of judgment’ in the beauty pageant of 1997, which marked the victory of Diana Hayden always intrigued him.
On the contrary, Deb always supported the win of Aishwarya Rai in the Beauty Pageant, where she was crowned as the Miss world in 1994, quoting that, “she represents the Indian women in the true sense”. Following this biased opinion towards the Beauty contestants, he faced a lot of vexation from varied zones, be it from politics, social workers or the beauty pageant themselves.
Panchali Bhattacharjee, a social worker and the wife of former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, also cited that Deb’s remarks were very “unexpected”. “Beauty pageant winners work very hard. It is not right to demean them in any way. Besides, we do not see women in any stereotypical manner. They should have the freedom to express themselves as Laxmi, Saraswati or otherwise,” she quoted.
Also, Femina Miss India contestant from Tripura, Mamita Debbarma opinionated, “It is a shame that our chief minister is making such comments”. She also thrusted upon the fact that Beauty Pageants slog really hard to achieve that level of accolade in their lives, “The governments of other states felicitate and promote those who win these accolades. This comment is very unfortunate.”
Basana Deb, who is the State Congress vice president and a social worker also cited that, “This is none of his business. I am completely against stereotyping Indian beauty as goddess Laxmi and Saraswati. This is an old and retrogressive thought process, like that of a fundamentalist. The rest of the country is laughing at our chief minister’s comment and we are also ashamed.”
The State Congress vice-president Tapas Dey also pointed out the flaw by quoting, “His (Deb’s) comments are divisive. He tried to differentiate between Aishwarya Rai and Diana Hayden with a clear motive, but both of them were judged by those who, according to Deb, are international mafia.”
Deb again put forth his idiosyncratic views yesterday by asserting that the organizers of the Beauty Pageants were the international mafia who have hunted down a grand market in India.
The esteemed comments of our Tripura CM, Biplab Deb, followed just a few days after Narendra Modi’s prudence to the BJP leaders to woo away from any kind of controversies and to devoid of the addition of the “extra masala” to the media, by presenting them any kind of reckless comments.
Deb, an art graduate has also spurted that, there was an existence of the internet as well as the satellites during the epic time of the Mahabharata, which pelted Deb with the plethora of rebukes and criticisms from the political antagonists, highbrows and of course, the eternal social media.
We wonder how will the country ever progress if its pilots are themselves ladened with such litters!
