Andolanjeevi row: After Chidambaram, now Rahul Gandhi takes a jibe

New Delhi, Feb 10: After P Chidambaram, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has joined the exchange of "andolanjeevi" jibes, used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi two days ago in parliament over the protest by farmers against the three new farm laws.

The word andolanjeevi could be seen as referring to people who often participate in mass mobilisation.

Rahul tweeted in Hindi, "Crony-jeevi, he who is selling the country."

Earlier, Chidambaram tweeted he was a proud andolan jeevi (someone who thrives on protests) and accepted the term as a badge of honour saying , "I am a proud andolan jeevi. The quintessential andolan jeevi was Mahatma Gandhi."

Not only Chidambaram, advocate Meena Kandasamy and Congress' social media coordinator Gaurav Pandhi also expressed pride in being andolan jeevis and changed their profile names to andolanjeevi dr. meena kandasamy and Gaurav Pandhi-Andolanjeevi. Former diplomat KC Singh took a jibe at the Prime Minister via a tweet.

Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also attacked PM Modi on his 'andolan jeevi' remark and went onto call the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party as 'chanda jeevis', which means those who survive on chanda or donations.

However, the term coined by the Prime Minister was welcomed by some people like BJP MP from Bengaluru Central P C Mohan, entrepreneur Nikhil Nanda and Former Governor of Tripura and Meghalaya Tathagata Roy.

P C Mohan tweeted, "Word of the year Feb 08, 2021 Andolanjeevi Adjective [ Aandolanjeevi ]
One who cannot live without protests and its members continually keep finding ways to stoke protests.
Eg: He's been an Andolanjeevi for many years!"

PM Modi said while replying to The Motion of Thanks on President's address in the Rajya Sabha, "We are well aware of some terms like 'shram jeevi' and 'buddhi jeevi'. But I am seeing that for some time a new entity has come up in this country- andolan jeevi. This community can be spotted wherever there is a protest, be it agitation by lawyers, students, or labourers, sometimes at the forefront and sometimes from behind. They cannot live without protests. We have to identify such people and protect the nation from them. They are parasites."