A political party is doomed when it does not learn from its past mistakes. But, the Congress continues to employ the same old strategy of making everything about Narendra Modi personal as a way to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in every election of significance.
It’s laughable that the venerable grand old party fails to recognise that this strategy of personal attacks has no electoral value and does not help the Congress in winning the support of the people.
Modi knows the game very well and uses such insults to the hilt to garner the sympathy of the voters like he did when Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry said: “Modi ko uski aukat dikha denge (Will show Modi his place)” while releasing the party’s Gujarat manifesto last November.
Without wasting any time, Modi played the victim card and aroused emotions of the voters in his homestate. “The Congress says, ‘Modi ko uski aukat dikha denge’,” he said.
“You all (Congress leaders) are from royal families but I am a sevak (a servant).” With folded hands, he said, “I have no aukat (status). Sevaks have no aukat.”
It played into the theory that Gujarati pride had been hurt and must therefore be avenged. The BJP made a stunning comeback.
Ahead of the high-stakes Karnataka election, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday likened Modi to a poisonous snake.
The BJP swooped in immediately and slammed the “slanderous” remark saying it reflected the “mentality” of the main Opposition party in the state.
Reacting to Kharge’s remark, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said Kharge’s statement was “worse than the one given by Sonia Gandhi. “Congress made Mallikarjun Kharge the party president but nobody considers him that, so he thought of giving a statement which is worse than that given by Sonia Gandhi.” Thakur was referring to the UPA chairperson’s infamous ‘maut ka saudagar’ (merchant of death) remark on Modi.
BJP leader and Union minister Shobha Karandlaje wondered to what level Congress will stoop in order to target the Prime Minister. “What does he (Kharge) want to tell the world? PM Narendra Modi is the PM of our country and the whole world respects him and using such language for the PM shows the level to which the Congress has stooped. We want him (Kharge) to apologise to the country,” she said.
Kharge, who made the remarks at Kalaburagi in Karnataka, later issued a clarification saying his remark wasn’t directed at Prime Minister Modi but at the BJP and its “divisive” ideology.
In a tweet, Kharge said, “BJP’s ideology is divisive, hostile and full of hatred and prejudice towards the poor and Dalits. I discussed the politics of hatred and malice. My statement was neither for PM Modi personally nor for any other person.”
There are many instances of the Congress taking a swipe at PM Modi, and the BJP exploiting it during elections.
Maut ka saudagar
Modi could have lost the the Gujarat elections in 2007 had the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s remark, calling him “Maut Ka Saudagar” (merchant of death), not turned things around. Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, used Gandhi’s remark to his advantage, and shot back saying Congress was trying to save the perpetrators who attacked Parliament.
Chaiwala
In 2017, when Modi was the prime ministerial face of the BJP, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s ‘Chaiwala’ jibe painted the Congress as anti-poor who had insulted poor Gujaratis. Claiming that Modi could never become prime minister of India, Aiyar said: “He could sell tea at a Congress conclave,” which was then underway. The ‘Chai-wala’ jibe helped Modi project himself as someone from a humble background and continues to drive his popularity.
It was a historic election victory for Modi’s BJP that transformed the political landscape of the world’s largest democracy with the saffron party winning 282 Lok Sabha seats while the Congress setting its worst tally ever of 44.
Neech Aadmi
Aiyar, a serial offender, went on to call Modi ‘neech’, someone who belongs to a lower caste, in the run-up to the 2017 Gujarat elections. Modi played the victim card and spun Aiyar’s remark into a casteist slur. The groundswell changed the narrative of Patidar agitation in 2017 polls and catapulted BJP to power again with 99 seats.
Chowkidar Chor Hai
Throughout the 2019 poll campaign, Rahul Gandhi used the slogan ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ to remind people of all the unkept poll promises of 2014 and shatter the image of Modi as being incorruptible in view of demonetisation and the Rafale scam.
Modi again turned around the slogan to his advantage. Modi launched the ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ campaign with BJP leaders and ministers using the chowkidar prefix on their twitter handles. The BJP won a landslide victory with a mandate of 353 seats in Lok Sabha, its highest tally ever.
It’s clear that the BJP knows how to exploit the minutest of their opponent’s mistakes to the optimum. This time will be no different, and Kharge’s remark has already put the Congress on the defensive.