On May 12, Singer-composer and Padma Shri recipient Adnan Sami took on Aam Aadmi Party MLA Naresh Balyan for comments on him by the AAP leader. In a tweet quoting Balyan, Sami said, “Goray chale gaye aur Gadhay chor gaay!! (The White went away and left donkeys behind),” and urged him to show love for the country once to feel better.
How did it all start?
The Twitter war between the singer and MLA started on May 10 when Sami posted the gaffe of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann where he said ‘Hayward’ instead of ‘Harvard’ during a speech. The CM had said that his govt will send teachers to Switzerland, Finland, Singapore, and institutions such as Oxford and ‘Hayward’ for professional training at the cost of the government. Responding to this, Sami wrote, “Punjab Teachers to be trained in no less an institution as ‘Hayward’… Cool.”
Irked by the tweet, MLA Balyan decided to jump and call Sami a Pakistani. He wrote, “The breed of Pakistani Army should not interfere in our internal matters. Go to Pakistan and speak.”
Sami, who is known for his wittiness online, said, “When a person is unable to argue, he comes down to stupid comments, and his thinking attains a lower standard.”
His comments further irked Balyan, who said, “I can understand your helplessness. ‘Oh Pakistani’, you were born in England. Even beggars did not pay attention to your nasal singing, that is why you had to come to India. Now a Pakistani like you got Indian citizenship from the Modi government. You have to show loyalty.”
Sami took the chance to further mock MLA Balyan and said, “So you are saying that England has a bigger authority in our Indian music. So much so that they are more intelligent than 1.2 billion people? Wow, the White went away and left donkeys behind. Some day you should try to show loyalty to the country. You will get a lot of love.”
Later, Sami posted a tweet with an image that read, “Without freedom of speech we would never know who the idiots are.”
Adnan Sami became an Indian citizen in 2016
On January 1, 2016, Adnan Sami became an Indian citizen. He was granted citizenship by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Humanitarian grounds. In May 2015, Sami had applied for citizenship after the Pakistani government refused to renew his visa in 2015. Adnan first landed in India in 2001 and continued to win the hearts of music lovers for over one and a half decades before becoming an Indian citizen.