Atishi Marlena, a leader from Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), recently posted an Instagram image of a sewer plant, which she claimed was built by her party in the city.
While questioning the money spent on the much vaunted Indian “Statue of Unity” built by the BJP government in central India, Marlena further compared it to the sewer plant.
She stated that instead of “tokenism” and “statue- building”, her party rather chose to spend money to help overcome the prevailing water-crisis in the country.
In this age of internet and social media, seldom does any political statement pass off without a certain amount of scrutiny, so a section of the Twitterati responded quite sharply. It was quick to point out the image shared by Marlena was actually from a sewer plant in California, US. The sewer plant that the politician was apparently referring to is reportedly under construction after earlier being approved by the Delhi government.
The project is estimated to be completed by 2022.
Parody party's parody leader Atishi Marlena passes off California’s sewer treatment plant image as Delhi’s Okhla https://t.co/YHthtgFbHs
— Nirwa Sharma (@nirwamehta) 13 July 2019
What added spice to netizens’ amusement was the fact that Marlena, who had unsuccessfully contested the Indian Parliamentary elections recently had portrayed herself as an “educationist”, flaunting herself as an “Oxford graduate” during the election campaigns.
A section of the Twitterati lampooned the politician as to how she was unable differentiate between Delhi and California in spite of “having an Oxford degree”.
World's best educationalist
— Happu Singh (@are_dada) 13 July 2019
How can you find fault with the nation's most envied educationist hailing from @AamAadmiParty ?!
— MohannKrish (@Krishna58819686) 14 July 2019
That proves what a great educationist and reformer she is.
— sanjay kr verma (@aman28verma) 13 July 2019
Shame @AtishiAAP @msisodia @raghav_chadha @Saurabh_MLAgk @PreetiChoudhry @BDUTT and she call herself an Educationist and Oxford return! All Oxford Walla in the world shud be feeling ashamed. Did Oxford taught her this?
— ShashiKB (@KbShashi) 13 July 2019
The “Statue of Unity’ that Marlena took a dig at is a gigantic statue of Indian statesman and independence activist Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It was constructed in the state of Gujarat by India’s ruling BJP government at an approximate cost of INR 2,900 crores ($414 million).
