Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday claimed there are cracks within the Congress and the wider Opposition ranks over the party’s “repeated efforts to launch a failed product”, in a not-so-veiled attack on Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, who has been on the streets against the BJP-led NDA government over alleged electoral fraud. Using the word “parjeeevi” or ‘parasite’ for the main Opposition party, and deploying the term “dimagi (mental) naxals”, he said the voices of “honest critics” get lost in the “noise that the Congress creates”.
“There are movements that naturally want to expose the government’s shortcomings and genuinely want to reform the system, and this is necessary in a democracy… Their voice gets lost in Congress’s noise,” said PM Narendra Modi, as part of a keynote address at the NDTV World Summit 2026.
‘Dimagi Naxals’ have so taken over Congress’s mind that the party has lost its own capacity to think,” he said. “There are movements that naturally want to expose the government’s shortcomings and genuinely want to reform the system, and this is necessary in a democracy… The remarks come at a time when, besides the Congress-led INDIA bloc that has the Samajwadi Party and the Left among its constituents, other Opposition parties such as the AAP have also been on the streets, as has been the youth movement Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) that forced the change of the education minister in July. There has lately been some synergy between the Congress and the statedly apolitical CJP on the issue of alleged police excesses to quell demonstrations. “The Congress has become a parasite that does not want to let anyone move ahead. The PM suggested the Congress is similarly hogging space inside Parliament too. “We have seen in Parliament how many talented young MPs there are in Opposition parties who want to make their point and criticise the government. “Let Congress bring whatever ruin it wants upon itself… But, to shield its family from the constant stain of failure, Congress is now putting India’s achievements, India’s virtues and India’s progress itself in the dock. The country’s aspirations are limitless.
Because congress wants to keep only one person in the limelight,” he said, speaking in Hindi, but Congress does not let Parliament function, so that others don’t get a chance,. Those who want to speak against the government democratically, their voice too gets lost in the Congress’s noise,” said PM Modi, as part of his keynote address at the NDTV World Summit 2026 in New Delhi, accusing the Congress of destroying such movements. “Amid all these challenges, we have before us the grand goal of a Viksit Bharat (Developed India, 2047).
He also said the Congress has dissent within over Rahul Gandhi’s constant centrality. The grapes are so sour that Congress has set about cutting down the vine itself,” he said. That is why a single spirit resonates in India today, and that spirit is: ‘We Will Do It’,” he further said, using the “will do it” catchphrase increasingly made popular by the government in recent weeks.
