Has BJP's Subramanian Swamy been told to stop making provocative comments?

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha BJP MP and all-round gadfly Subramanian Swamy may have inadvertently acknowledged that his party's higher-ups have asked him to zip it.

Late yesterday, he tweeted saying that the opposition Congress party has become "aggressive" in the Rajya Sabha (RS) during the latest Parliament session that began last week. And it's the reason he cites for this Congress "aggression" that may have given the RS MP away.

Ever since I became silent in Rajya Sabha, Congi has got aggressive. Any connection or accidental coincidence?

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) July 25, 2016

Late last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an exclusive interview to Times Now, didn't name Swamy but made it clear that he completely disapproves of his party's MP making disparaging comments about the outgoing RBI governor and others. Without naming him, Modi admonished him in the interview on national television for his "fondness for publicity".

All through May and June, Swamy was publicly attacking outgoing Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan. One of things Swamy said about Rajan was that " he's mentally not fully Indian."

In June, after Rajan said he would not be seeking a second term as head of the RBI, Swamy began attacking Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das and even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Very possibly referring to Jaitley, who at the time was on a trip abroad and wearing a suit and tie, Swamy said ministers who wear western clothes "look like waiters" and must be told to wear Indian clothes.

BJP should direct our Ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie they look like waiters

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 24, 2016

Those from his party who said Swamy should exercise discipline in his public statements, were threatened with a bloodbath by the Rajya Sabha MP.

People giving me unasked for advice of discipline and restraint don't realise that if I disregard discipline there would be a blood bath

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 24, 2016

And while all of this was going on, the PM didn't say a word. Then finally on June 27, the PM said:

"Whether it is in my party or not, still I think such things are inappropriate. This fondness for publicity is never going to do any good to the nation. People should conduct themselves with utmost responsibility. If anybody considers himself above the system, it is wrong," the Prime Minister told Times Now.

The interviewer then commented, saying, "That's a very clear message."

And PM Modi concurred. "I have a very clear message. I have no two minds about it."

A few days after PM Modi's television interview, Swamy tweeted:

PTs : New problem: when publicity relentlessly seeks a politician. 30 OVs outside the house, 200 missed calls from channels and paparazzis ?

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 29, 2016

Other than that, the Rajya Sabha MP has been pretty quiet.