CM ‘sorry’ for barber barb at Cong-NCP government

Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has apologised to the barber community after he made an analogy about the profession to target the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government over incomplete projects. After facing a backlash because of his remarks, Mr Fadnavis wrote a letter to the association of barbers and apologised for his comments.

“I only wanted to stress on how the previous government left projects incomplete and in doing so, I unintentionally, gave an example. I did not mean to hurt the sentiments of anybody in doing so,” he said.

“Yet, adverse reactions were brought to my notice. I wish to clarify that there was no intention of hurting anybody’s sentiments. I express my apology to the barber community as their sentiments have been hurt,” he said in the statement.

While speaking at a programme near Pune on November 9, Mr Fadnavis had said that during the previous Congress-NCP government, various irrigation schemes were left incomplete, as money was not being provided for them.

To highlight his point, he had said, “In the garb of schemes, the houses and vaults of contractors were being filled (with money).”

“Just like a barber shaves half beard of one man and half portion of hair of another to prevent customers from leaving when there is a long waiting, these people (previous government) too gave a little cream to everybody, which left the works incomplete. Our government is doing the work of completing these pending schemes now. In another two years, we shall complete all of them and farmers will benefit,” Mr Fadnavis had said.

Following the chief minister’s comments, the barber community held protests at some places, including Osmanabad district, and put up posters portraying the chief minister with half a beard and with only half of his head sporting hair.