Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is in trouble after losing his temper and making an offensive remark at a packed meeting. The BJP has decided to hold protests and demonstrations across the country because he “insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi by bringing up his father”. The remark has added a new dimension to a political climate already charged by demands for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the scrapping of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
It happened in Patna, the capital of Bihar. On Sunday the Congress president was speaking about the state of the country at a Congress meeting held to mark the 139th birth anniversary of Shri Krishna Singh, Bihar’s first chief minister. Listing the false promises he said Narendra Modi had made as prime minister, and how he was taking away democratic rights and weakening institutions, Kharge said Congress would send to jail those who had rigged the SIR. Modi too would be sent to jail, he said.
While Kharge was speaking, a young man in the audience was heard to say, “Modi nahi jayega” (Modi will not be removed). Kharge lost his temper at this. Usually mild and soft-spoken, he suddenly grew agitated and shouted at the young man: “Modi ka baap bhi jayega (even Modi’s father will go), baap bhi jayega.”
Congress workers threw the young man out of the meeting, and he was allegedly beaten. His name is Santosh Kumar. He told the media he had been misunderstood. He said he had meant that Modi would not go so easily, and that removing him would take a revolt.
News that the prime minister’s father had been dragged in spread like wildfire, and top BJP leaders protested at once. Home Minister Amit Shah wrote on social media that by making objectionable remarks about Modiji’s father, the Congress president had crossed every limit of decency, and that the Congress under Rahul Gandhi was becoming more indecent by the day.
“After losing one election after another, the Congress has sunk into frustration and despair. It has nothing left but the politics of abuse. It is losing acceptance even among its own workers and supporters,” Amit Shah wrote.
BJP president Nitin Nabin, party spokesman Sambit Patra and former Union minister Anurag Thakur were among those who sharply criticised the Congress leadership. Nitin Nabin said the Congress does not think about the country’s development or people’s welfare. It only knows how to make offensive remarks and resort to personal attacks, he said.
Sambit Patra said the Congress’s abuse was going further day by day. They had mocked the prime minister’s mother, and now they had dragged in his late father as well. Anurag Thakur said that not just today but from the very first day, top Congress leaders had been humiliating Prime Minister Modi and insulting him with abuse, and that this had now reached a new level.
Union minister Giriraj Singh, who won the Begusarai Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, said Modi could not be removed by abuse like this. Narendra Modi would remain prime minister for the next 30 years, he said.
Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Singh and Chirag Paswan, leader of the NDA ally Lok Janshakti Party, also issued statements condemning the Congress. BJP leaders are demanding that the Congress president withdraw the remark and apologise unconditionally.
The Congress, however, said the BJP and RSS were planting people in its meetings to provoke trouble, which is how they distract opposition leaders.
The BJP has decided that on Monday its leaders, workers and supporters will demonstrate outside party offices in every district of every state, demanding that the indecent remark be withdrawn and an apology made.
Insults traded between BJP and Congress leaders are nothing new in Indian politics. When Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat, many called him the “Butcher of Gujarat” because of the Gujarat riots.
During the 2007 Gujarat assembly election, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi gave that label a twist and called Modi “maut ka saudagar”, or “merchant of death”. Since then one Congress leader after another has insulted Modi in various ways.
In 2017 Mani Shankar Aiyar called Modi a “neech aadmi”, a low-minded man. It caused a huge row, and Modi himself used it politically, citing his own “backward” caste and saying the Congress had insulted him over his caste.
In 2012 Congress leader Digvijaya Singh compared Gujarat Chief Minister Modi to Ravana, saying he would meet Ravana’s fate if he did not give up his arrogance. In 2014 Congress leader P Chidambaram called Modi a “compulsive liar”. Chidambaram also called Modi an “encounter chief minister”.
During the Agniveer controversy, Bihar Congress leader Subodh Kant Sahay said the dictator Modi would die like Hitler. Campaigning for the 2023 Karnataka assembly election, Mallikarjun Kharge called Modi a “poisonous snake”.
Rahul Gandhi has not spared Modi either. The Congress leader called him the “chief of thieves”, which led to court cases. When Modi called himself the country’s “chowkidar” (watchman), Rahul picked up the phrase and said “chowkidar chor hai” (the watchman is a thief).
Before the 2023 Karnataka assembly election, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya published a list showing that the Congress and the opposition had abused Narendra Modi 91 times. Modi began telling rallies that he digests 2 to 3 kilograms of abuse a day, that he has been on a “gaali diet” (a diet of abuse) for 20 years, and that this abuse is the source of his strength.
Modi, too, stands out in the history of insults. In 2004, at a rally during Lal Krishna Advani’s “Bharat Uday Yatra”, Modi called Sonia Gandhi a “Jersey cow”, referring to her foreign origin, and her son Rahul a “hybrid calf”.
Besides calling Rahul Gandhi “shahi khandan ke yuvraj” (prince of the royal dynasty), “shehzada”, “naamdar” and “Pappu”, he has recently called him a “failed product”. In 2012, referring to Sunanda Pushkar, the late wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, Modi mocked her as a “50 crore girlfriend”.
What Mallikarjun Kharge said about Narendra Modi’s father when he lost his temper continues the political rivalry and abuse of the past two and a half decades. It is one more example of how India’s democratic political space is being degraded day by day, and how courtesy and decency are disappearing.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report