PUNE: A simple Guru Purnima event at a pre-primary school snowballed into a controversy after the opposition party members alleged that students washed feet of BJP corporator Varsha Sathe, 41, at the programme.Sathe, the corporator of Ward 39 (Upper Super Indiranagar), denied the allegation.“Children applied haldi-kumkum on my feet during the Matru Puja, nobody washed my feet. It is our tradition to do so. The opposition is unnecessarily politicising this issue,” she said.Sathe had uploaded pictures of Wednesday’s event on social media.These images triggered the controversy. According to Sathe’s affidavit submitted during elections, her highest qualification is HSC from Mumbai Hindi Vidyapeeth.NCP’s Rupali Patil Thombare said, “Sathe herself put the pictures as status, where one can see the children wiping her feet and performing puja. Who gets their feet washed by children? These people have to understand that they are just corporators, not gods. The least she could have done was to apologise for the mistake. Instead, her party and its leaders are justifying the act in the name of tradition. Is it a tradition to make young students wash the feet of politicians? If BJP is talking about traditions and culture, then the students’ parents must have been called and their feet should have been subjected to puja.”Mukund Kirdat from Aam Aadmi Party said making somebody else’s children wash or perform puja on your feet is not the way to earn respect.“This is outrageous. Do parents of these children know they were made to perform a ritual at a politician’s feet? PMC’s Shikshan Mandal must take action in the matter and BJP party leaders must decry it in public. At a time when we talk about improving the scientific temper, such things should not be done in the garb of tradition or culture,” said Kirdat.NCP (SP) youth wing vice-president Amol Pardeshi demanded an impartial inquiry into the matter.He sought measures to ensure that such incidents did not recur in the future.Sathe said, “Unlike what the opposition claims, it is not a PMC-run school. It is a private school. I had helped the school a lot and so I was invited for the Guru Purnima event.”
