NEW DELHI: BJP MP Kangana Ranaut and Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) spokesperson Saurav Das have exchanged sharp personal attacks after the actor-politician’s remarks describing Gen Z as “Generation gutter” triggered a political controversy.The war of words began after Ranaut posted a series of Instagram Stories on Tuesday targeting the CJP-led agitation over alleged irregularities in the NEET examination.Responding to her remarks, Das questioned Ranaut’s language and accused her of trying to “ride the CJP wave.”“These words don’t seem to be of a person who is mentally stable because you wouldn’t use this kind of language about the young. If there is a young person in your family who belongs to Gen Z or Gen Alpha or whatever, would you use such language against them?” he told PTI Videos.Das also criticised Ranaut’s performance as a parliamentarian.“I don’t have much to say about Kangana Ranaut, her own party members don’t take her seriously. There are videos of her from her constituency where she is meeting people and telling them, ‘Aap log to bohat kaam karate ho. Mujhe to laga tha ki MP banke zyaada kaam nahi hoga. Lekin yaha par to mujhe roz kaam karna pad raha hai.’ So that’s the kind of seriousness with which she sees her own work,” he said.“It’s fine, I think she is trying to ride the CJP wave. We said this before, anybody who wants to take credit or fame from the current movement, they are free to do so and so is Kangana,” he added.Ranaut later hit back through another Instagram Story, dismissing Das as “totally useless and unemployed.”“I just googled this person and he is 28 years old. And he claims to be a student. How he claims to be a student I have no clue!!” she wrote.Responding to Das’ criticism of her work as an MP, Ranaut said she had been in public life for two decades before entering politics.“At his age, I had two National Awards. Yes, as a new parliamentarian, I was overwhelmed with all the work because I am also a filmmaker, performing artist, producer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur. But someone like him, who is totally useless and unemployed, will never understand what it means to be in massive demand at all times, at any age,” she said.“Dear Saurav, your issues are personal. You are not a student; you are simply useless. Let’s start with learning some skill. It’s a good place to start,” she added.The exchange follows Ranaut’s criticism of young protesters a day earlier, when she described them as “Generation gutter” in a series of social media posts.“Never in my life I have seen so much ugliness in one place, these reels from GenZ protests are puke inducing, the way they speak and the kind of language they are using, never in my life I have seen everything in each and every frame so jarring and so crass all at ones, ewwww who is birthing and raising them?” Ranaut said.In another post, she criticised young women who took part in the protests.“Here is a new generation of so called westernised Indian women. I call them Generation gutter,” she said, adding that some of the women protestors were “so ugly and corrupt that they can’t be home makers either”.Her remarks drew criticism from opposition leaders, including the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and AIMIM, as well as several social media users, who described the comments as insensitive and derogatory.The CJP-led protests ended on July 25 after the government accepted key demands of the protesters, including the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
