Four words in Hindi rang across a hall in Patna on Sunday: “Modi kahin nahin jayega (PM Narendra Modi won’t go anywhere). Mallikarjun Kharge reacted immediately and angrily to a heckle that wasn’t.
“Modi ka baap bhi jayega (Even his father will have to go),” the Congress chief said, repeating himself thrice, raising the right arm high for emphasis. The man who said the four words, though, said his sentence wasn’t heard in full, and that he meant the exact opposite.
“I was actually saying, ‘Unless the public revolts, Modi will not go,” said the not-a-heckler Santosh Kumar, after he’d received a beating and been thrown out of the venue. That “unless” bit was lost in the din, twice over — first inside a Congress hall and then in the BJP’s chorus. Home Minister Amit Shah said in a post on X that Kharge’s jibe showed how the Congress had “torn apart all norms of decorum”. He placed the remark in a longer list: “They have hurled insults at his revered mother, called him ‘merchant of death’, and mocked his poverty by calling him ‘chaiwala’.”
Earlier reporting noted: A stark remark by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge about Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event in Patna triggered a massive row on Sunday as the BJP alleged he had insulted not just the PM and his late father but the country too. Sambit Patra’s comment pointedly showed how Santosh Kumar’s later clarifications meant nothing in the narrative. The BJP MP and spokesperson insisted, “Congress workers themselves, at a party meeting where their national president was speaking, appeared convinced that Rahul Gandhi was not capable of leading the party to victory… Even an ordinary Congress worker seems to understand this. The Congress, too, continued to misread Santosh Kumar. “I was saying that unless there is a revolt, Modi will not go. Kharge made the comment in response to a man in the crowd who was heard saying the phrase “… Modi nahin jayega ( will not go/lose power ). The alleged heckler, Santosh Kumar, was thrashed by Congress supporters.
Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Ram told NDTV that he was a BJP supporter who said “BJP-type things”. When told that Santosh Kumar had described himself as a Congressman who was only offering a suggestion, Ram was unpersuaded: “Whatever his statement may be, would any Congressman make such a statement? As for Kharge’s choice of words and the father analogy, the Bihar Congress chief said the intention was not to hurt anyone: “Circumstances became such”. Congress spokesperson Surendra Rajput said Kharge was only using an idiom: “PM Modi has said much worse comments. Only one part of that sentence was heard and was misunderstood,” alleged heckler Santosh Kumar said after being pushed out of the venue. Earlier reporting noted: “Modi ka baap bhi jayega (Even his father will have to go),” Kharge said twice.
Earlier reporting noted: “I was saying that unless there is a revolt, Modi will not go.
Senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan, who recently lost the education ministry after a mass protest by the CJP over paper leaks, asked whether the Congress had run out of arguments against the PM.
BJP chief Nitin Nabin said the Opposition resorts to personal attacks as it has no issues left to debate. BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha used the words “disgusting, petulant, uncouth”.
