Patna/New Delhi: A single sentence from a Patna stage on Sunday was on the streets of half a dozen cities by Monday afternoon.
At Bapu Sabhagar, where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was speaking at a function marking the 139th birth anniversary of Bihar's first chief minister, Shri Krishna Singh, an audience member called out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be going anywhere. Kharge's reply — "Modi ka baap bhi jayega, baap bhi jayega" — is now a national row.
The BJP put its state units on the street the next morning. In Delhi, workers tried to march from Sena Bhawan Circle towards Kharge's Rajaji Marg residence and were stopped by police. In Patna, Bihar BJP president Sanjay Saraogi led a 'Jan Akrosh March' from the party office to Income Tax Golambar, roughly 300 metres, and burnt an effigy of the Congress chief. In Bengaluru, MLAs and MLCs demonstrated at Freedom Park under Assembly Leader of Opposition R Ashoka and Council Leader of Opposition Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, and police detained them. Lucknow and Jammu held their own protests; in Jammu, posters of Kharge were burnt.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he was "shocked and deeply hurt". "I believe this is not merely an insult to an individual or a family, but to India itself. This is also an assault on the dignity of politics," he said. "In a democracy, you may register your opposition, question policies and criticise the government — but please, do not cross the boundaries of personal decorum." What struck him most, he said, was the source: "these comments were not made by some ordinary Congress worker or a youth leader, but by the national president of a party that claims to be the oldest political party in the country."
Union Minister Pralhad Joshi aimed at the Congress MP from Raebareli. The BJP had known about "Rahul Gandhi's immaturity", he said, but now others in the party seemed to have been infected by his company.
The Congress pushed back on two fronts. Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge, the Congress president's son, said the BJP manufactures issues out of non-issues: "These cultured people have forgotten what Modi and Shah have said in the past. We don't need to learn culture from them." The party also maintained that a BJP worker had first insulted Kharge's late father, and that the Congress chief was referring to Modi's "ideological father", the RSS.
RJD MP Manoj Jha, an INDIA bloc ally, said such conduct was not expected from Kharge — "no two opinions about this" — but that the outrage should not be selective.
Two complaints have been filed. BJP worker Krishna Kumar Singh submitted one at Patna's Kotwali police station on Sunday evening; because the venue falls in Gandhi Maidan police station's jurisdiction, it will be transferred there. He wants an apology within 24 hours. In Delhi, Hindu Sena national president Vishnu Gupta has asked the Police Commissioner to register an FIR.
The Congress is now building towards its 'Save Votes–Save the Nation' march and a rally at Ramlila Maidan on November 1.