A WhatsApp forward, followed by a Facebook post, make for a recipe for disaster. It's a lesson that 37-year-old Chainsingh Deora, master of many recipes, recently learnt the hard way.
Deora, who was employed as a cook at junior law minister PP Chaudhary's New Delhi residence, was fired recently from the kitchen, after he shared a message on Facebook mocking the lotus, which is the symbol of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to which his employer belongs.
The trouble started, as it often does these days, with a message circulating on WhatsApp: "Hamari bhool, kamal ka phool (Our mistake, the lotus)." Deora, who is educated till Standard X according to a report in the Dainik Bhaskar and quite active on Facebook, shared it on social media.
With the agrarian crisis at its worst and last year's note ban turning out to be a damp squib, having not yielded the promised black money, the public's mood seems less than favourable towards the ruling BJP government at the Centre. But the public, as Deora realised to his peril, doesn't include people like him, employed with a serving minister of the party.
Word somehow reached his boss about the indiscretion, which led to a round of rebuke, after which he was sacked from his job. Although Deora deleted the offending post and begged for mercy, Chaudhary wasn't in the mood to sway from his decision.
According to reports, Chaudhary's office claimed Deora wasn't fired for the post alone but for his general conduct towards other members of the staff. He was initially poached by the minister from a colleague's place for his culinary skills though.
A resident of Rajasthan's Pali constituency that Chaudhary represents, Deora used to work for another BJP MP from the state, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Impressed by his cooking, Chaudhary allegedly offered him almost double the salary, a jump from ₹8,000 to ₹15,000, and employed him at his house.
During his tenure at Chaudhary's place, Deora had a chance to serve meals to dignitaries like Baba Ramdev. His Facebook page bears images of several such encounters.
According to The Telegraph, Deora shared the negative post about BJP having lost his faith in the party of which he was once a staunch supporter. Apparently, his feelings towards the party began to sour after the police in Rajasthan killed a a fellow Rajput, a gangster named Anand Pal Singh, in June this year.
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