Running out of issues to talk about, the Congress party has now opposed the Indian cricket team’s new away orange jersey stating it to be communal. The party claims that BJP has saffronized the jersey and conveniently blamed the Modi government for disrespecting the tricolour.
Congress MLA from Chandivali in Maharashtra, Arif Naseem Khan has come up with a bizarre justification to the party’s claims.
Listen in to the bizarre justification by Congress’s Arif Naseem Khan (@naseemkhaninc) over India’s ‘saffronised’ jersey row. | #WearOrangeWithPride pic.twitter.com/B5R6ExsRKD
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 26, 2019
#Breaking | Massive row over new Indian cricket jersey. Congress (@INCIndia) objects to orange jersey. Congress says, ‘tricolour disrespected by PM @narendramodi’.
More details by TIMES NOW’s @karishmasingh22 & @roypranesh. | #WearOrangeWithPride pic.twitter.com/xqmSP1Uktb
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 26, 2019
This is not the first time Team India’s kit will have the orange colour. As can be seen in the above video, the colour orange has been a part of the Indian cricket team’s jersey several times in the past as well. Orange colour was also donned by the Indian hockey team. As a result of ICC changing it’s jersey rules, India was required to change its jersey’s colour in order to differentiate from team England’s blue jersey. England being the host country, could retain its blue coloured jersey.
It may be noted that orange and saffron are different colours, and while Indian cricket team’s jersey will be orange, Congress is attacking the Modi government saying it is saffron.
ICC has clarified that India was given colour options to choose from and has stated the design was taken from India’s old T20 jersey, which had the orange colour in it.
ICC says colour options were given to BCCI and they chose what they felt went best with the colour combination. The whole idea is to be different as England also wears a same shade of blue as India. The design is taken from India’s old T20 jersey which had orange in it. 0pic.twitter.com/PkPmsjmny6
— ANI (@ANI) June 26, 2019
BJP’s MLA Ram Kadam hit back at the Congress for creating a needless controversy and said the party has run out of ‘real issues’ to speak about. He also asserted that Congress was the party, which had linked colour to terrorism by coining the term ‘saffron terror.’
#Breaking | BJP hits out at Congress over Team India jersey row.
Listen in.More details by TIMES NOW’s @Aruneel_S. | #WearOrangeWithPride pic.twitter.com/8EIM1MnQF2
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 26, 2019
As per reports, Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Asim Azmi has also objected to the new colour and has suggested the government was behind the decision. He said, “Modi ji wants to saffronize the entire country. A Muslim was the one who designed the Indian Tricolour. There are other colours in the tricolour, why choose only orange? It will be better if their jersey is based on the Tricolour.”
It was previously reported that team India was required to change its colours while playing against England. This new rule of jersey by ICC is inspired by the concept of ‘home’ and ‘away’ jerseys in soccer, where if the two teams have the same colour kit, the home team can retain it while the visiting team has to use a different coloured kit.